


A Crosshair, Across Land

by UltramarineMaizes



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Airports, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Organized Crime, Public Display of Affection, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-02-27 01:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2674397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltramarineMaizes/pseuds/UltramarineMaizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kise and Aomine are in a pretend relationship. But actually it's more complicated than that. Someone is smuggling drugs into the region and Aomine needs to figure out who. And Kise is the hitman hired to kill him. Can this idiotic pair figure out their life and do their respective jobs while maybe sneaking a few kisses along the way (it's not like they mean anything anyway, right)? </p><p>(Hitman!)Pilot!Kise with TSA Agent! Aomine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hardest Part is the Night

Aomine blinks and shifts, checking his watch. Blocky letters tell him it’s 6:30. Sitting up cursing, he knows he overslept and now he may have accidentally logged extra hours (which isn’t a bad thing, but also it is). Groggily, he looks around and sees the tarmac, now covered in darkness, as dusk settles in. Damn. He has even missed sunset, which is his favorite part of the day because he loves looking at the sky awash with vivid colors, bold, brash and breathtakingly beautiful.

Pause for a second and let it be known that he is most certainly not a romantic. The sky...it’s just pretty.(He’s sure certain people would hold it above him and never let him live it down.)

But up here on his favorite mostly abandoned airplane hangar, where the metal is comfortably warm underneath his back in contrast to the crisp Autumn evening air, it’s his favorite place to decompress and have his required me-time (a minimum of at least 14 hours a day is required, otherwise he might want to commit murder in security which would defeat the purpose of aforementioned career). Grumbling, he starts descending down the ladder. It’s mere fifty feet until he can reach the staircase and then two flights down before a five-minute walk across the tarmac. Then navigating through Terminal 1, he can get to the metro and go home. Aomine steps down onto the balcony, resting his hand on the doorknob, sighing. The commute back home is always the biggest drag of the day.

Unbeknownst to him, exactly two flights down, an airport worker steps out of one of those small two passenger airport mini trucks. He holds up a hand to tell his stern-faced passenger to stay put. Then he hops out, taking long powerful strides towards another person, a man wearing uniform coveralls. Coveralls shakily lowers his head in respect.

The worker asks, “So? Tell me how things are going.”

Coveralls swallows, his adam’s apple visibly bobbing, “S-sir, the shipments are coming in smoothly. There aren’t any problems.”

The worker tilts his head a little, “Ah?”

And then suddenly he grabs Coveralls by his uniform collar and pulls him near his face snarling, “Then why is there a few grams missing?!”

There is a strangled cry in response, “S-sir, we stowed them in the wheels and s-some of it froze over s-so-”

The worker tightens his grip, “Tell me, what is Fukuda Sogo known for?”

He violently shakes Coveralls and Coveralls manages to garble out, “H-high quality in-ingred-”

The worker tilts his head even more with a quick flick to the side and his cap, that had obscured his face, drops to the ground revealing short dark braids backlit by the colorful lights of the tarmac, “Eh? You are gonna have to speak louder.”

The worker cries out, his voice cracking, “High quality ingredients, sir-!”

Braids smiles sardonically, “That’s right. High quality ingredients and–You forgot the ‘And’–High quality product. Do you know what happens when I lose product?”

It’s a rhetorical question.

He continues, “I lose money. And when I lose money, it makes me go crazy. Because it is my money!”

On the last word, he throws Coveralls across the room and he collides against a rusty toolbox with a loud scraping crash.

Braids sneers at him with disdain from where he stands. He cracks his knuckles, as streetlight combined with the shadows of the night frame a small red tattoo shaped with the letters F and S shaped neatly into a circle nested in the webbing between his thumb and index finger. He takes half a step towards the exit, “Make sure it doesn’t happen again. I want every gram accounted for and physically present when we check the product, do you hear me? I’m a busy man, you see. But the next time you fuck up, I might not have the time to end you myself, but don’t worry. Someone will come to make sure the job gets done.”

He turns to leave, walking toward the mini truck when a small metallic thump and a “Shit! Fuck!” reverberates across the resounding silence, save for the soft whimpering coming from the toolbox area. Whipping his head around quickly, Braids sees a guy fervently sprinting away back toward the terminal with the white letters TSA brightly emblazoned on the back of his bomber jacket. He narrows his eyes. Why is TSA here. Are they onto him? On guard, he quickly scans the space. It’s empty and there’s no where for anyone to hide.

Braids returns to the truck and turns on the ignition. His passenger gives him a questioning look, but Braids ignores him, veering around the perimeter of the building. Completing a full circle, he stops the car, foot still holding down the brakes. There’s no backup, no trucks, no officers, nothing. Which means that guy must have been here just coincidentally. Maybe he was slacking? From what it seem even in the shitty yellow night lights, the jacket might have been dusty, maybe he was lying around smoking cigarettes or something. Better be safe than sorry though.

He stares out of the front window, focusing on nothing in particular, and then mutters quietly, “Ishida, find out who that is and then have Seven erase him.”

Ishida nods, “Understood.”

 

* * *

 

In a dark room in a dingy warehouse near the pier, Kise sneezes while twisting on a silencer to the barrel of his M96. It’s really dusty in this room, probably from being forgotten and unused. Which is great and all for him because it gives a great vantage point over the pier, but there’s probably bad stuff in the air and that’ll probably give him cancer later on in life or whatever. The best thing to do is to just get this over with quickly.

Kise lowers himself on eye level with the scope of his rifle and peers through it. Ah. He’s here. His target has just gotten out of a dark sedan (an Audi maybe?) into the maze of cargo crates, stacked up so high it is like a mini city of muted colors. The target hastily walks to meet the correspondent, giving him a handshake. Their lips move. Kise can tell that the target is nervous because he can see sweat droplets reflecting light. The target looks flighty, but Kise isn’t worried. He’s had enough experience with sniping that as soon as there is an opening, he knows he’ll get the target. He’s done it so many times, yet he still can’t help having a light case of butterflies before each hit. Kise lightly pets the trigger with his index finger.

“C’mon,” He mutters to himself impatiently as he fights to resist another oncoming sneeze.

The correspondent tips his hat and walks off and the target walks over to the edge of the pier to retrieve his package. It’s a trap. Because as soon as he reaches the edge, Kise presses down trigger. After a jolt from recoil and a millisecond of delay, the man falls over the edge, lifeless, his body is swallowed by the waves of the sea.

Kise breathes a sigh of relief and packs up his gear. He stands up and dusts himself off before checking his watch, fingers unconsciously rubbing the small red dot etched on the skin next to his thumb. Oh good. There’s enough time to get to the airport in time to make his flight.

Putting the last barrel of the disassembled rifle back into its metal case, Kise’s pocket vibrates. He checks the number and then answers, “Yea?”

Ishida’s low voice is clear over the phone, “How did it go?”

Kise scoffs and rolls his eyes. At this point, Ishida has more reason to worry when Kise calls him. No call means success. It’s an unspoken form of communication between him and the second-in-command in Fukuda Sogo.

Ishida replies, “I see. We have a new assignment for you, Seven.”

Kise laughs softly, “Oh? Haizaki wants another person dead?”

“Something like that. Find out who this is. And then get rid of him,” Ishida says.

“Same deadline as usual?” Kise hummed.

“Do you need to ask?

Ishida hangs up.

Kise stares at his phone waiting patiently and then it vibrates again. Opening up the text, he sees a disoriented face looking back at the camera, a familiar TSA uniform jacket fluttering behind him.

One look at the tarmac, he knows this guy works at the same airport he does. Well, that makes this job a whole lot easier. The objective for these few months will just be to find this guy and offing him in the least visible way.

 

* * *

 

A large pile of files falls on Aomine’s desk. Aomine stares at the person who dropped them as if they just released a horrifying plague of locusts across the land.

“Dai-chan, what is _that_ look! Here are the files to the smuggling case. I know I’m asking for a lot, but can you please look them over?”

Exasperated, Aomine pinches the bridge of his nose and runs his fingers through his hair.

“Can’t you just summarize it for me?”

Satsuki gives him a stern look, putting her hands on her hips, looking less like serious police detective Momoi Satsuki and more like the pushy childhood friend he’s grown to know so well.

“I’ve told you a billion times, but you always ignore me. And now that you are working on this case, you need to know all the details so you have to read it because you obviously won’t pay any attention when I talk about it,” she huffs indignantly.

Aomine looks off to the side suddenly more fascinated by the ugly off white walls in his office space. He hates studying. It requires effort and that is a massive pain. His job as a TSA officer is already kind of a pain– always having a need to keep an eye out on people, perform body checks, pull people aside to tell them no you cannot bring this bottle of wine onboard no I don’t care how much it cost you that’s it I’m confiscating this yea I don’t care talk to my supervisor. And then the news hit that he was assigned to this massive drug smuggling case, a product of the collaboration between the local police and the airport TSA. Of course, Satsuki was so happy they could collaborate on a case together since their jobs never overlap even if they are both working in the law enforcement. Somewhere between spazzing about how it would be like the old days and talking about the case at their hangouts at a local pub, Aomine just decided to ignore her and focus on drinking. Because that’s what a person does when they don’t have work. He doesn’t think about work. He doesn’t talk work. It’s Aomine time. But now, it seems like he’ll have to pull overtime with this case because it’s that big and it sucks. Aomine sighed, “Ok, ok I’m paying attention this time. Just– tell me the details again....Please, Satsuki.”

Satsuki squints at him and resignedly shakes her head, “Good god, Dai-chan, I spoil you too much. You pay the tab next time we go out.” 

Shushing his protests, “Ok, ok. So there’s been a big influx of drugs, mostly cocaine but some meth and other fun stuff, in Honshu and we were trying to figure out where the dealers are getting their supply because the production is far too large for any mainland plant to produce without law enforcement finding out. We’ve already traced the source to the port of Nagoya and we have a suspicion Fukuda Sogo might be a big player.”

Aomine furrowed his brow and scowled. Fukuda Sogo, huh? That’s makes this nasty business. Even working in the TSA, Aomine knows the Fukuda Sogo, an established Yakuza group in the Japanese underworld, is something to be feared. There is not much known about the actual hierarchy about this group, nor the leaders because they like to work in the shadows. Throughout the years there has been scattered yet disturbing media coverage about people who made the mistake of crossing Fukuda Sogo, even Aomine has a hard time suppressing a sickly feeling in his stomach when hearing their name.

Satsuki notices his grimace, “Yea, I’m a little worried, but I think from your end, it should be ok because you don’t have to catch the bad guys just look out for them, Dai-chan! What you need to do is just monitor the people in the airport and on the flights to see if there are any suspicious characters carrying in the drugs because we are just trying to pinpoint the exact methods they are bringing in this stuff.”

He sighs, leans forward in his chair, and looks up at her seriously, “Are you going to be okay, Satsuki?”

Satsuki waves him off, “Don’t worry Dai-chan. You known me for so long, you should know I’m perfectly capable of kicking butt when I need to. But ahh, that makes me so happy. Dai-chan is worried for me~”

Aomine rolls his eyes and looks away, “Shut up! If you are going to tease me, get out!!”

She grins at him and checks her phone, “I actually do have to leave for a meeting at the precinct, but give those files a look over, ok, and I mean actually read them not skim over them, and just keep an eye out in the airport. And let me know if you find anything suspicious!!!”

She flips her hair and walks out of his cubicle with Aomine glaring at her. As his best friend, Satsuki sucks a lot sometimes. But she’s the worst when she makes him do work. Especially…. _studying_. With the words and the movement of the eyes and tiny printed letters? Ugh. She is the devil incarnate.

Aomine flips open the first manila file to find nothing, but blocks and blocks of text. Not a single picture in sight (On the first page at least).

Well.

That’s that, he tried. He checks his watch and look at that, it’s time for him to make his rounds near the terminals. Standing up, he pulls on his bomber jacket and walks out.

 

* * *

 

Kise walks through the arrival terminal in step with his fellow pilots and stewardesses. They have just returned from their flight from Nagoya, after a series of six flights back and forth. They arrive in the employee lounge for some downtime before heading off to another flight to Kobe. One of the stewardesses drops her neck scarf while trying to retie it and he picks it up and hands it back to her.

“Such a gentleman, Kise-kun,” she laughs, playfully grabbing her scarf.

Kise grins widely, practically sparkling with charm, “Of course, anything for you, Mai-chan.”

His co-pilot, Kiyoshi, laughs and slaps him on the arm, “Stop flirting on the job, man.”

Pouting, Kise rubs his arm, “That hurrrtsss, senpai.”

“Could it be that you are jealous?” Mai asks tilting her head at Kiyoshi, smugly.

Kiyoshi rolls his eyes and Mai laughs.

Kise laughs with them. When thinking of a perfect daytime cover, becoming a pilot was something that popped into his mind like a little blip and he would have never imagined it to be something he truly enjoyed. But as he flew to more destinations and completed more assignments from Fukuda Sogo, Kise realized that the two occupations have a lot in common. He is the star of the show, being an essential asset to helping his all his clients achieve what they want when they want. That thought in itself is exhilarating enough, the idea of pleasing everyone while excelling at what he does. Two separate professions, two separate lives, but with similar overtones. There should never be any overlap; Kise makes sure of that.

Upon reaching the lounge, one of the stewardess speaks up, “So I heard a rumor going around about some drug trafficking going on in this airport. TSA has issued this serious announcement saying that if anyone has seen or heard anything to step forward.”

Kise looks up at her, eyes in earnest shock, “Eh? Drug trafficking? That’s scary! I mean here? Security makes it so hard for people to smuggle things in!”

She crosses her arms and nods, “That’s what I think too, I mean, criminals seriously have to try really hard to get it onboard.”

“Unless it’s getting on the airplane through different means,” Kiyoshi says.

“How?” Kise raises his eyebrows.

“Maybe someone in Baggage is stowing it in the baggage compartments? By not having to go through security, they can sneak stuff onboard since they are the ones scanning the bags behind the scenes.”

“Kasamatsu-senpai works down in Baggage, he would never allow his team to do such a thing!” Kise protests.

Kiyoshi shrugs, “I’m not doubting him. Just saying that might be how the smuggling is happening.”

The crew murmurs in agreement and the conversation naturally shifts to something about a newly anticipated movie coming out this weekend. Kise eats lunch with them, expressing interest in the movie, before excusing himself to go to the restroom.

 

* * *

 

“What a pain,” Aomine mutters as he trudges towards Terminal 3, which is the terminal farthest away from the TSA office. It’s so far, even after taking the shuttles and walking mostly in the employee-only areas. He turns the corner and is about to walk down the hall when the door opens to the Air Staff lounge and his vision is suddenly flashes gold. He twists his body away in time as a steward? Pilot? He can’t fricken tell the two apart– almost crashes into him. The guy steps back and immediately raises his hand in apology.

“Ah! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He grabs Aomine’s shoulder to steady him.

Aomine immediately shakes him off and tells him it’s fine. The guy keeps apologizing though, its kind of annoying, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes to look up at him. And then his eyes widen like Aomine is on fire or something. This guy’s face is weird. By that Aomine means his facial expression. His actual face is quite pretty.

Aomine furrows his eyebrows even more than their naturally furrowed state, “Yea?”

“TSA,” he says finally, “You’re TSA...I was looking for you!”

Out of his element because no one ever looks for him besides Satsuki, Aomine coughs, “For me?”

“Yes,” the steward and/or pilot but definitely air staff guy smiles. Geez, this guy should come with a warning label or something because that smile could blind someone. Aomine squints at him.

“Why,” he grunts, eloquently.

The guy is finally considerate enough to turn down that ridiculous smile looking sheepish, “Because...I think I may have seen something related to the smuggling case? I might be able to help you guys out?”

Woah, did that just happen? Getting assigned to this case by morning, then by noon someone comes to him with a lead. Is this luck? Or the universe just letting him off easy? Whatever it is–Aomine will take it. Maybe this is a sign that things will be smooth and if that is the reason then this case will be easy peasy. Maybe he won’t have to use that much effort after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh...be prepared for cliches and romcom drama and everything that is great about fake dating because you are in for a ride, lemme tell you.
> 
> (Please excuse bad grammar, I will go back and edit along the way.)


	2. Get Ready

The thing about charm is that Kise is really fucking good at it. So much so, he could just give a wink and flash a smile and people are immediately attuned to him. While he loves how people are so easily enchanted by him, it does make things go a little too easy for him. Case in point, his hit assignments.

 

Too easily, the target is gullible and careless, making them easy to eliminate. People are so predictable. They always make the same mistake when cornered. Like the recent guy at the pier, he didn’t even bother to make things interesting. Suffice to say Kise’s bored. He loves his work. But it’s boring and he’s looking for a challenge or something to make it interesting so that he doesn’t tear his eyeballs out.

From the get go of this new assignment seems like it’ll be like all the others. Kise feels pretty silly for the disappointment he has when he realizes his target is as easily manipulatable as the rest.

Face stuck in a perpetual scowl, the TSA officer is definitely a match to the one in the picture Ishida texted him. But seeing him in better lighting, Kise inherently finds him intriguing. He doesn’t seem like a cowardly lacky, slimey middle man, or a clueless witness. No, he carries an air closer to a mafia higher up and it’s been a while since he had to deal with one of those. Anyway he digresses.

Upon realizing that this was the target, Kise whips out his unlimited charm reserves and lays it on thick, testing the waters. To his disappointment, the guy is easily lured in. Maybe he should retract his previous comparisons with mafia higher ups. (Isn’t it super suspicious how he just happened upon this guy at this airport and immediately offered to give him tips about the case? Why isn’t this guy questioning why it’s so easy when it’s not supposed to be?)

In any case, Kise would have loved to get the ball rolling, pull him aside to talk about the case, however he actually does need to run to the bathroom before his next flight leaves in about 40 minutes. So instead, he sets up a meet up for later with that TSA agent at the food court in Terminal 2. Now it’s about the wait. It will be a long day.

Kise washes his face and slaps his cheeks. Focus. This is a job, not a hobby. He stares at his reflection intensely, willing his discontent away.

The goal will be to find out a few things: Who is this guy? What are his habits? Where does he make his rounds?

Kise will nuke this guy for all the info he knows, end him, and pick up his paycheck. As simple as that. Maybe the next job will be far more interesting.

 

* * *

 

That stupid pilot is late. Aomine exhales grumpily into his palm while drawing circles on the tabletop. It’s 9 pm and he just wants to go home, maybe jerk off, and then go to bed.

The airport is shutting down. Workers are wiping down the tables, duty-free shops are closing down, the last passengers are filing out from Arrivals to the taxis or patient family members. Everyone is leaving and if everyone is leaving and Aomine is still here, now that says something. This information better be good. Aomine leans back with an exasperated sigh as that stupid and _late_ pilot finally comes running out of Arrivals and sits down in front of him, slightly out of breath.

“Sorry! We had some elderly folks that needed extra assistance to exit the plane,” he says apologetically. Aomine doesn’t forgive him. At least he thinks so.

Aomine grunts in response, “Let’s get to the point because I wanna go home and I know you probably do too, so tell me what you know.”

He receives a sheepish smile, “Um, well ok. I trust you are TSA, but it feels a little weird just speaking about this case to someone I don’t even know. I’m Kise Ryouta. Nice to meet you.”

Augh, this is the small talk pleasantries Aomine hates. Did he not hear him the first time? This is what he meant by _let’s get to the point_. Give him the juicy bits and be done with it. It’s not time to sip tea, bask in the mesmerizing hum of the industrial floor sweeper the custodian pushing around, and stare blissfully into each other’s eyes. Aomine ignores the hand Kise holds out.

“Aomine.”

“Ah, Nice to meet you, Aomine-san,” Kise put hand back down without batting an eye. Kise...is this type of guy, huh? The charmer. How annoying. 

Aomine grunts again, this time with more emphasis to urge Kise into talking about the important stuff.

Kise’s smile falters. It’s honestly amazing how small features in his face just subtly change and then there’s a whole new shade of prettiness that settles in. Wait, what. No prettiness. No. Where did that come from. Aomine scowls and leans forward, “What’s wrong? You constipated?”

Kise’s eyes widen and his cheeks dust pink with surprise, “No, Aomine-san! How rude!”

Aomine can’t help smirking. He knows it’s childish, like pulling pigtails, but poking holes through that wall of charm down makes him feel good. Maybe he should try to be accommodating though because this guy is helping him out and all. He gets up without a warning, walks up to one of the food stalls that still have workers around and asks for a cup of water. He returns and puts it in front of Kise. Kise stares at it as if he has never seen water before.

“Everything is closing down so that’s all you’re gonna get,” Aomine grumbles, crossing his arms.

“Thanks,” Kise pauses, “I saw something, but I have to know if I can stay as an anonymous tipper. Because the people I saw were working with my company and I don’t know how far up this may go so I don’t want to get in trouble or anything, but...”

Aomine looks at Kise who is fidgeting with his hands. His eyes are earnest. Going through the mental list of checking for signs of lying: there’s no typical sweating and averting of the eyes like when he questions a passenger if they have something suspicious in their bags and discovers a foreign vegetable, or snap responses etc. Aomine, although annoyed by the existence of charming people like Kise, feels compelled to want to believe him. A do-gooder’s instinct, he supposes. It’s why he’s in law enforcement.

“You can trust me,” he says evenly, matching Kise’s gaze with his own.

Kise gives him a quick smile, “Ok, well then lately….I think I’ve seen some workers in baggage or the clean up crew...I’m not really sure, but I noticed that they um..go aboard into the baggage hold too often? I didn’t think too much about it, but after the announcement I saw the same thing in Nagoya so...I’m not sure if this is helpful or not, but that’s what I saw…”

Aomine digests this slowly, “Where did you see this?”

Kise scratches his chin, thinking, “Gate 7? Terminal 2?”

“When,” Aomine pushes.

“Maybe a few days ago?”

“And you saw this here in Tokyo and also at Nagoya?”

Kise nods, his pretty face twisted into a frown. Or a pout. Ugh.

Ok well, time to hit the hay. That’s the tip he stayed after work for. Which actually if it is true, it might be a really good start. Aomine gets up. Kise starts to follow him, “Is...Is that it?”

“I have to fact-check your tip first. It’s how it works.” He shrugs.

Kise looked down again, drawing attention to his long lashes. Has Aomine ever noticed those before? If not, he must be pretty blind because those things are like a mile long. Are those even natural? Does this guy wear falsies or something? (Aomine once had the pleasure of helping Satsuki put on falsies for an event. He picked one up, held it up to her, and asked, “What the fuck is this?” She laughed and told him they were falsies and that girls wear them sometimes when they want their eyes to pop. Aomine was so confused as to 1) why and 2) where do these things come from he’s never seen them before in his life and 3) he’ll never get the idea that it’s like fake mustaches but for eyes out of his head.)

Aomine scratches the back of his neck, “In any case, you don’t worry about it. You are free to go.”

Relieved, he turns to leave when he hears a soft wait. Good god, does this guy not understand the fact that it’s incredibly late. Aomine turns around unable to mask the annoyance in his voice, “Yea?”

Huh. What a look. Aomine’s heart rate quickens. Kise’s eyes are bright and burning, “I’d like to help you out. I mean I can get close to the air staff and everything without causing suspicion? I think I could be useful to you, Aomine-san.”

Wait what. What reason would this guy–that he just met– would just volunteer for such an _incredibly troublesome_ task.

“Why?” Aomine asks, showing his mastery at meaningful one-word questions.

Kise continues, “I don’t like the idea of anything happening under my nose. I’m willing to help out to ensure everyone will be safe.”

Aomine blinks. A person like Kise confuses him. Just when he thinks he’s got him figured out, too.

“Please Aomine-san. Allow me to help. I will be useful. That is a promise. As long as you protect my identity, I will supply you with useful information.”

Kise’s eyes have an intensity like no other. That expression makes him want to step back but also fascinates him, awaking some sleeping intrigue buried deep inside of him. Aomine breaks eye contact, focusing on the polished tile beneath his feet, “So you are actually a pilot, huh?

Like a switch, Kise pouts. Prettily. The expression is surprisingly simple and authentic. It piques Aomine’s curiosity and makes him want to tease him more. (The pulling pigtails thing again.) But that’s overstepping the bounds of first meetings, their relationship, and in any case, annoying. This guy is definitely annoying as he exaggeratedly whines, “What did you think I am? A steward? Stewards and Pilots have different uniforms!”

Aomine starts to walk away, “Yea, yea.”

Enough of this chatter, it’s time for him to decompress and figure out how he should deal with Kise. On one hand he seems like an empty-headed pretty boy, but on the other hand there’s an captivating side to him that Aomine can’t quite pick up. And if they are to form this working relationship, that is if Kise’s tip has any truth to it at all, Aomine will need to learn how to handle this guy. Like trying to catch a snowflake in his hands, he won’t know the intricacies if it melts before he can look closer.

He sticks up a hand in goodbye and he’s pretty sure Kise beams at him as he leaves.

 

* * *

 

Ishida’s voice is even on the phone, “So you’ve found out who he is. Did you find out how much he knows about us?”

“Hrm~ Not much,” Kise sing-songs as he walks down a side street of cafes in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, “But I’m sure I can figure it out in time.”

“Whatever,” Ishida grunts lightly, “I’m sure I can have some guys over there dig up information about this Aomine…what did you say his name was again?”

“Daiki,” the name rolls of his tongue easily, “Aomine Daiki.”

“We’ll look into him some more and I’ll let you know if we find anything useful.”

“Thank you!”

Kise hangs up.

He stops in front of a cafe with large bay windows half covered in lacy plaid curtains and walks in. This cafe was Kise’s idea because Aomine _obviously_ wasn’t a cafe kind of guy. But after several attempts of screaming at each other at Aomine’s pub of choice, they decided to pursue different approach.

In the cozy lighting, he walks by a glass case of delicately decorated pastries to the back. Behind a decorative bookshelf filled with glass vases, he sits down across from Aomine.

“Hey,” Aomine says.

“Hey,” he parrots.

They’ve met up at this cafe several times since the first meeting at the airport. Aomine fact checked his tip and investigated a little bit more. He had snuck around baggage department, but he was so disruptive to the environment that the baggage manager, Kasamatsu, pulled him aside to ask him what the hell he was doing. It turns out Kasamatsu had confiscated some baggage he found to be suspicious, and there was indeed a large supply of cocaine tucked inside. Kasamatsu then confessed to wanting to do his own investigation before announcing what he had found. Aomine had grilled him at that point, but found out that Kasamatsu was merely protecting his workers and wanted to figure it out first before blindly pointing fingers. Going through security cams, time-card logs, and asking around the floor cleared Kasamatsu’s name. It’s a good thing too because Kise felt bad about scapegoating Kasamatsu since he really did like and respect him.

One good thing is that they have evidence of the drugs making it through this airport, though it isn’t anything ground breaking as they have confiscated some shipments before. But Kise was glad that his initial lure to get Aomine to believe him was actually true. Of course, he had his own suspicions and heard his own share of rumors from fellow members, but Ishida hadn’t provided him with anything to work with, nor does he know that he’s using the role of anonymous tipper to get close to Aomine.

In any case, it’s all worked out well for Kise. Their relationship now is simple. It’s a two-way street. Kise gives Aomine his daily observations and keeps an eye on persons-of-suspicion that Aomine tells him to pay attention to. Aomine, in turn, shares scarce information about the case itself, but Kise is able to learn more about him instead. Aomine Daiki is twenty-seven, lives by himself, likes ladies with big breasts, and often slacks off on his job. (Sometimes he texts Aomine to ask where he is and Aomine doesn’t answer until two hours later with a short reply of _sorry was napping._ ) It’s not enough, but a good start and Kise notices each accurate tip he provides, Aomine seems to trust him more. Slowly but surely he’ll get Aomine to a corner where he can’t escape and where no one will find him ever and then Aomine Daiki will disappear from this world. He’s long accepted this is going to be an easy job, but he might as well play the part until the last act.

“...So you say he hasn’t been moving much?” Aomine puts down his coffee. It’s black with no sugar or cream. Kise doesn’t understand how he can stand the bitter taste without gagging.

“Yes, Aomine-san...I think we might be at a dead end with this one,” Kise frowns, “Or maybe he’s lying low? Do you think the smugglers know about-?

The cafe door opens. A flash of light hits their table, refracted off one of glass wind chimes and Aomine glances up. And his eyes almost bulge out of his head.

“S-shit!” Aomine ducks down on the table. Or he tries to, trying to fit his hulking six foot frame under the delicately carved wooden tabl. It’s a pretty hilarious sight.

“Huh?” Kise looks over his shoulder.

A gorgeous woman with waist-length pink hair had entered the cafe. She walks up to the counter flipping through the menu to order.

“Why is she here, shit, Kise can you check to see if there’s anyone else with her, wait no is she distracted?” Aomine’s voice is muffled through the hands covering his face. He’s resorted to crouching over and hiding behind Kise’s silhouette instead, “Dammit, can you not do that in such dumbass kind of way?”

Kise turns around, “What dumbass kind of way, Aomine-san? So mean! Plus, I can only see them if I turn around. You act as if I have eyes on the back on my head.”

Aomine looks at him with seriously, “Do you because that would be so usefu-”

“Dai-chan!”

The woman has turned around and is walking over quickly to greet Aomine.

“Oh god, she sees us-! Ok shit- how do I-” Aomine straightens up and tries his best to give her a smile. At least that’s what Kise thinks it is. Or he could have heart burn. If Kise wasn’t confused about what was happening at this moment, he’d burst out laughing.

“Yo, Satsuki…..Tetsu.”

Tetsu? Who in the-

“How are you doing, Aomine-kun,” a voice says out of nowhere.

Kise calculates the possible trajectory of the source of the soundwaves and he realizes that this “Tetsu” is standing right next to him. It is a grandiose effort of self-restraint for him to not fall over from the mini heart attack he experiences on the discovery of this unexpected person. Who is standing right next to him. A modern ninja.

Satsuki peers at both of them, taking in the scene. Dainty china cups half empty with half eaten cakes from a decorative cake tray with doilies (When the order arrived, Aomine had stared at the display warily, but after trying the cakes on the display, he didn’t really care). Aomine and Kise dressed in casual wear. Tetsu looks back and forth between the three of them.

“Did we interrupt something, Dai-chan,” she asks, a smile sprouting on her face. Does she see something that he doesn’t?

Aomine squints at her dumbly, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, were you getting to know this gentleman, Dai-chan?” she tries again. Oh, this gives Kise ideas.

Aomine furrows his eyebrows evidently even more confused, “What?”

“Are we interrupting a date is what she means, Aomine-kun,” Tetsu monotones.

Aomine’s eyes widen, “What? No- I mean-”

His eyes flicker over to Kise and back to Satsuki. Aomine can’t tell them what they are doing. This is a confidential agreement and if he told them it would be a breach of trust. But then what can he say they are doing? Kise can see smoke pouring out his ears from brain malfunction. So he takes action by leaning across the table, putting his hand over Aomine’s clenched fist, and looking up at Aomine’s friends. Aomine flinches on contact, but Kise squeezes his hand. Shut up and let the charm master take care of it.

“Yes,” Kise turns on his charm at 110% and smiles, “Aominecchi and I are on a date,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be M rated later but I'm not sure yet. Happy Thanksgiving!


	3. Let It Rock

“Oh my god, I can’t believe what just happened,” Aomine mutters into his hand while walking to the train station because they live on the same line.

Kise stretches his hands up high, “Momoiichi and Kurokocchi are so nice! I love your friends! I’m actually amazed that you have friends!”

Aomine takes a hand off his face and glares at him, “Amazed that I have-? Shut the fuck up!”

He punches Kise in the arm, receiving a squawk in response. Glowering at the people on the street giving them weird looks, Aomine pulls Kise aside into an empty bus stop, “What is- What the fuck- What the fuck is this?”

He motions towards their hands, fingers intertwined. Kise stares at them with a dumb look on his face as if holding hands with a colleague is natural. (News Flash: It fucking isn’t.)  Is he serious about this? Forget it. He shouldn’t have trusted Kise back in the cafe. He shakes his hand free. Kise smiles smugly at him.

“Can you tell me what’s exactly wrong with you?! Is your head even screwed on right?” Aomine tries to check, but Kise ducks out of his way. Damn him.

Frustrated, he settles for crossing his arms, “Why aren’t you embarrassed?! About this???!!”

Kise claps his hands in front of his face, head bowing in apology, “Okay, I wasn’t really thinking, but actually I think this works out really well?”

Aomine glares at him, “How does pretending to date you solve anything? Now I have to keep up this lie to my best friends and this is just weird, I mean, because you are the idiot who I’m working, you know professionally with!”

Not that Aomine ever cared about professionalism.

“H-how am I am idiot? So mean, Aominecchi! Listen if I’m helping you out with your case and you have to keep me anonymous we have to meet up often-”

“We could just talk over the phone,” Aomine grumbles.

“Ok then how would you explain the amount of calls we’ll make to each other? Think about it. If we pretend to date, it’ll throw off suspicion! I can keep meeting you and supplying you with information like today and no one would question anything,” Kise says enthusiastically.

Does he not see the problem? Like _dating_. One night stands, perfectly fine. Friends with benefits, sure. Dating? As in serious relationship? (As in he has to try?) Aomine’s rusty to put it lightly. Aomine hasn’t dated in years. The last time was in high school with some girl who he thought was acceptably cute and had big boobs. They went out for three weeks and then she dumped him saying something about how he doesn’t communicate his feelings well and she’s not sure how he truly feels about her and if that’s the case then maybe they are better off without each other. That was pretty frustrating to hear, considering he had actually tried and asked Satsuki for some advice on how to treat his girlfriend. It was wasted effort on a relationship that fizzled out as quickly as it started.

Aomine grinds his teeth. He’s not immune to reason though as many would assume. Kise has a good point. It’s actually quite a simple answer to everything and no one would question who Kise is to him. He wouldn’t need to explain the meetups and texts. Dating would wrap it all up in giftwrap and tie it with a pretty bow and no one would question a thing. He just can’t let himself get caught up. This will be fake and it’ll stay that way.

“You...you have a point,” Aomine reluctantly spat out. He hated letting this idiot know he was right.

“...Satsuki and Tetsu already know we are ‘together’ so...I guess...this’ll have to do,” Aomine scratches the back of his neck.

Shit. His brain still is trying to catch up with what just happened, but he lets Kise grab his hand and navigate him out of the bus stop as an old lady comes in and sits down on the bench.

It’s a short walk down the road to the train station. Aomine tries not to focus on the strange foreign object in his hand. It’s warm, and a little clammy, but that might be because Aomine’s palms are sweaty. Kise doesn’t seem to mind though. He’s so damn weird. How can he just jump into this….this crazy mindset without batting his pretty mile-long eyelashes.

Their hands break as they pass the turnstiles in the station and then finally to Aomine’s relief, they stop holding hands when they board the train. But they end up sitting next to each other on the train. Kise’s eyes are looking out the windows of the train catching the light from the sunset. Sunset. It’s sunset. Aomine watches the Tokyo cityscape blur in front of a multicolored sky.

“This is my stop,” Kise says softly as the train gently jolts to a stop. He leans close to Aomine’s ear, lips almost ghosting over the shell, causing Aomine to almost jump out of his skin. He manages to fight the urge and hears Kise whisper softly, “Don’t worry. This is just pretend, so just act, Aominecchi.”

Kise leaves the train with a smile and a wave. His body betrays him. His face reddens as Aomine focuses his attention on the sunset again.

That idiot has some gall. Where did Kise come up with that nickname. It’s so….so disgustingly cute and It has got to go. He makes a mental note to tell him off next time.

 

* * *

 

Mai’s face lights up and she edges near Kise, barely able to contain her grin, “He’s coming, Kise! I never thought you’d go for that type.”

“Mai-chan,” Kise covers his mouth and playfully pats her on the shoulder.

She giggles as Aomine saunters up.

“Yo,” Aomine looks at Kise. Kise beams back at him.

“Hi, _darling_ ,” Kise draws out the last word.

“Hey…... _baby...cakes_ ,” Aomine’s left eyebrow twitches.

Kise tries really hard not to snort. He’s sure he can see a vein popping out. Aomine’s not fond of disgusting pet names. It’s pretty funny actually, and thankfully Kise manages to stifle his laugh. Mai looks at them with big sparkling eyes unable to contain her excitement. Aomine stares dumbly at her. C’mon. She’s waiting for some sort of a display of affection, why can’t Aomine see? Kise widens his smile slightly hoping Aomine would pick up. Aomine’s eyes flicker over towards his and he smiles wider. Still nothing. His cheeks are starting to hurt. Aomine’s brows furrow and Mai stares at both of them waiting. Oh god.

Kise resists the urge to roll his eyes. For someone who’s supposed to be _attentive_ working as security, he sure is dense. And that is putting it very _lightly_. (There are other words Kise could use too and he might if Aomine still can’t catch his drift.) He shakes his head towards Mai, raising his eyebrows, still smiling like a stock photo of woman eating salad. Aomine looks at him and back at Mai, his forehead creasing more. Good goooooooooooooooodddddddd.

How can anyone be so slow? Molasses would catch his drift faster than Aomine. _Put your stupid arm around me, do something so that she knows for sure we are dating you dumbass_ , Kise mentally snaps at him. Aomine is still standing there like an incompetent turd. Kise wants to hit him. As in slap some sense into this obtuse idiot. (Not hit as in kill. That’s for later, but for now they are trying to put up a convincing act.)

Finally he gives up on non-verbal communication since the guy was just incapable of reading his actions, Kise steps next to Aomine’s side and puts his head on his chest. Aomine freezes. And then _finally_. Finally!! Praise all that is good, he _gets_ the _goddamn_ _point_ and raises his arm to wrap around Kise’s shoulders. Kise snuggles in and gives Mai a smile while subtly pushing Aomine to walk away. He complies. Kise finally rolls his eyes. Aomine’s arm’s quivers around his shoulders. Or he should say above his shoulders because the big lug his purposely making it so he doesn’t have to actually touch Kise at all. What’s up with this guy and his antsy-ness with skinship. The tough guy Aomine is so surprisingly awkward when it comes to this. It’s really funny so much so that it’s kinda...well cute. Wait, no. Not cute. Just incredibly frustrating. That’s the right word.

“Is she still watching,” Aomine mutters as they turn the corner.

“Hrm,” Kise, now realizing the consequences of his actions, is distracted by two things: Aomine’s trembling arm over his shoulders and the surprising fact that Aomine’s chest is quite muscular. Resting his cheek on his pectorals made him wonder if the rest of Aomine was just as muscular. Uh. He’s getting side tracked. Anyways.

He makes sure they are completely out of sight and is about to tell Aomine that he can stop and rest his arm when he gets a idea, decides to bring up an arm, and tickle Aomine in the side.

Aomine makes the strangest sound that is like a mix between a grunt, cough, and yelp. Kise finally allows himself to break out in laughter as he is pushed away.

“She’s not watching anymore,” Kise gasps for air from laughing so hard.

“What the FUCK?!!” Aomine glares daggers at him, “What was that for?!”

Kise looks at him smugly, “For being the worst actor in the history of mankind. Why are you being so awkward about touching me? We are ‘dating’, remember? Couples do things. Like touching. You know when you put your arm on mine and then-”

“Shut the fuck up! I know what touching is, dumbass! It’s not really- It’s not-”

Kise claps a hand over Aomine’s mouth and smiles more mischieviously, “We are in a public area, Aominecchi. I’d be careful about what to say out loud.”

Aomine’s eyes narrow as he swings his arm around Kise’s neck and pulls him in for a noogie, “Why, you-!”

“Ouch! Stop, Aominecchi,” Kise cries out, laughing, “Ou-”

Aomine drops his hands back to his side as some airport workers come walking down the hall talking. He bumps his hand with Kise’s and Kise grabs hold. As soon as they pass, Aomine stops and turns to Kise. Kise stares at him.

The atmosphere has...suddenly changed. A new heavy intensity settles around them. Aomine’s blue eyes glinting fiercely on his stupidly distracting handsome face. (Handsome? Where did that come from?) Maybe there’s like a shortage of oxygen suddenly like some weird b-grade scifi space movie or something (despite the fact they aren’t in space) because Kise suddenly experiences a shortness of breath. (But that isn’t because Aomine is looking at him, it’s because they were just playing around, right?) And then, swiftly Aomine gives him a poke to the forehead, “What did I say about that nickname?”

“Ouch!” Kise rubs his forehead (it doesn’t really hurt, but he likes to give Aomine a hard time because it’s _fun_ ), “Not fair! It’s cute! I don’t like calling you, Aomine-san all the time. Aominecchi is more fun.”

Aomine responds with an eyeroll.

“Anything new on your end?” Aomine crosses his arms behind his head lazily, watching the planes taking off the tarmac.

“Well, actually no, but Mr. Hoodie looked extra fidgety today. I wonder if they are planning on doing something soon?” (Mr. Hoodie was the nickname of Aomine’s person of interest list number 1. He always wears a grey hoodie so Kise gave him that nickname in which Aomine told him that was literally the dumbest nickname ever. And then Kise told him to think up one and Aomine got frustrated and reluctantly admitted that ‘Mr. Hoodie’ was fine.)

They walk to a secluded corner in the food court with their trays.

Aomine puts down the empty wrapper of his burger, “Turns out the police have been responding to a rise of overdoses happening in the region. It’s the same drug that’s getting passed around, but supply is low and demand is so high because of its potency.”

“Geez,” Kise pokes at his yakisoba.

“If Mr. Hoodie is getting antsy, then there might be a supply drop tonight. Which means you gotta keep your eyes peeled...actually, let’s follow the guy.”

“Tonight?” Kise asks, surprised.

“Yea, tonight,” Aomine squints at him, “Why? You have other plans?”

Kise chews on a fry he stole from Aomine, absentmindedly, “Well, no…”

He was, however, expecting a call from Ishida tonight. He’ll have to postpone it to a later date.

“Alright then, tonight after your last flight, meet me near the Baggage claims–make sure you change into something less obvious –and we’ll watch for Mr. Hoodie. I checked his time sheet, he leaves around your last flight arrives back here.”

The change of clothes would be no issue because he always has a change in his locker. Kise looks down, “But it’ll be weird for me to just leave the other flight attendants and pilots…”

Aomine stares at him as if he’s the biggest idiot. Kise blinks at him. Aomine then opens his mouth and closes it. He tries again, blushing in the process. Kise is hit in the face with another reminder of how blockhead in front of him is adorable. No. No, he’s the target. No personal feelings. Kise must erase these little distracting thoughts. 

Aomine mutters quietly, “Just tell them we are going on a date right after work.”

Kise widens his eyes. Duh, that’s like the most obvious answer. How did he forget when ‘dating’ was his idea in the first place. He says oh quietly and nods. He checks his phone for the time. He needs to get ready for a new set of flights. Stacking up his plastic containers, he gets up and breaks into his charming smile.

“Then I’ll look forward to our date tonight, Aominecchi.”

He turns around and puts his leftovers from lunch in the garbage. Aomine gapes at him as he leaves. Kise chuckles. His charm still works wonders on that moron.

 

* * *

 

Kise’s face lights up as they meet up after his flight in the baggage claims as planned. He’s dressed in casual wear, donning a cozy sweater with some joggers. Thankfully, he isn’t late this time. But that idiot always seems to have very solid reasons as to when he is late so Aomine could never be truly mad at him. That stupid obnoxiously charming pilot.

“I had a look in back there,” Aomine points to the workers-only area behind the claims. “He’s still unloading baggage, but he should be done soon. And when he’s done, he’ll come out of that door.”

As soon as he says that, Mr. Hoodie appears and walks out with his bag and jacket in tow. Aomine and Kise get up from the benches near a moving baggage claim and tail him from a distance.

“Oh, this is fun, Aominecchi,” Kise whispers to him, “It’s like we are in one of those cop movies!”

“Shut up,” Aomine says as he bumps hands with Kise. On accident. Because he’s walking really closely besides him and it’s distracting. (But he has to agree. It is _kind_ of cool, he gets a taste of the life he would have had if he actually chose to be a cop instead.)

Kise smiles and looks at him from the corner of his eye. Was that a heart flutter? Goddamnit. It’s the subtle things like this. He attributes it to Kise’s stupid charm and he’s not sure if the asshole is doing it on purpose or not, but instinctually Aomine’s heart quickens and he doesn’t know what to do. There’s nothing he can do to calm it down, so he chooses to redirect focus on their suspect instead. If he’s affected by that bastard’s charm then, he won’t let him know that he is. It’s as simple as that.

The suspect gets on the train and they follow. It’s crowded with the last dregs of the evening rush hour. They both opt to stand even though there are free seats. Kise stands close to him as Aomine uses his height advantage to keep an eye on Mr. Hoodie. Or rather if he could see past Kise’s blond mop. Okay, it’s not a mop–it’s really nicely kept. Kise’s shampoo smells faintly fragrant, but Aomine can’t tell what it is. He wants to lean in and investigate to see what it is and if his blond locks are as soft as they look since they are in his face after all-

The train stops and while Kise manages to keep his balance by holding on tight to the leather strap, the people standing behind Aomine fall into him knocking him forward into Kise. Aomine just about forgets how to breathe, but thankfully his body does it instinctually. Sakura blossoms. Kise smells like sakura and his hair...it’s as silky as it looks as it brushes against Aomine’s face. He could stay here fo-

Aomine blinks and stands back up waving off the passengers behind him apologizing to him profusely. It’s no big deal, he tells them. He then turns and looks at Kise who gives him a small smile to tell him he’s ok before he looks off in some other direction. It’s then Aomine realises Kise’s ears have turned a little pink. Which makes him really embarrassed because embarrassment is contagious especially in situations like these. He quickly flips his head to look out the train window away from Kise, face flushing.

At the next stop, Mr. Hoodie exits. Aomine nudges Kise and they follow him out. The train station drops them at a lively street with lots of restaurants and nightclubs. After walking down to the street, the guy disappears into a restaurant decorated with Chinese lanterns. Aomine and Kise wait around until a restaurant hostess comes up to them to ask if they would like to be seated and they politely refuse. Looking around for some other place to wait around, Kise points out a park across the street.

It’s very small. Surrounded by well trimmed bushes and a couple of trees, there is a little children’s playing gym and a fenced-off court that looks like a…

“This is…” Aomine looks around when they enter, “a basketball court.”

It feels so weird to step into one since he stopped playing after college. The sound of a basketball hitting the pavement is heard from behind him. He sees Kise, absentmindedly dribbling a ball.

“I found this in those bushes,” he motions, “Guess someone forgot it?”

Aomine watches him dribble, “Do you play?”

Kise holds the ball and simpers at him, “In high school, not so much anymore...Why? Do you?”

He tosses the ball at Aomine who immediately matches his grin and continues dribbling the ball, “Yea.”

Kise watches him, “Then wanna play a few rounds?”

Aomine looks at him, eyes glinting wolfishly. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into, but Aomine’s not nice enough to warn him off. Aomine dribbles the ball slowly, “Whatever. Would kill some time before Hoodie comes out again.”

Kise widens his smile and lunges at him, in attempt to steal his ball. Surprised, Aomine turns around quickly, protecting the ball from Kise. Wow. This might be fun afterall.

They play a few mini matches and by the third, both of them need to sit down since neither of them have had such a strenuous workout in such a long time.

“One...more time,” Kise pants, leaning his head into his arms which are stretched out over his knees.

“We are supposed to be tailing that guy,” Aomine says breathlessly, sprawled out haphazardly against the fence.

“He hasn’t come out, I’ve been paying attention,” Kise peeks at him.

Aomine rolls his eyes. If he says so. But that’s ok. He’s more distracted by the fact of how much fun he just had. Playing _basketball_ , no less.

He has never played with someone who could match him on the court. That was part of the reason why he stopped playing after college was because he got so bored with the sport and had started to find it to be more of a chore than a hobby. Kise kept up with him through his feints and his shots, not once giving up, making it difficult to score. It was the challenge he didn’t know he was looking for and he hadn’t had so much fun in years. Seems like the feeling was mutual: Per each basket Aomine scored, Kise had cried out, “I won’t let you make the next basket, Aominecchi!”

To which he replied, “I’ll believe it when I see it, idiot!”

In the end, Kise didn’t get any shots in. But as they are sitting there under the street lights, Aomine’s taken off and tied his hoodie around his waist, Kise has rolled his sleeves up, Aomine really wants it to happen again. Basketball. With Kise. In the future after all of this is over, where they can play their hearts content instead of fooling around on the job. He hadn’t known he was craving the sport after forgetting about it for years, but Kise has inspired new hope.

The door opens and a familiar face walks out of the restaurant. Aomine motions Kise and they quickly move into the shadow of the trees outside the basketball court. Kise puts the ball back where he found it. Aomine squints over the bushes. Someone else is following Mr. Hoodie. As Kise returns to his side, he whispers to him, “Who d’you think that guy is walking with Hoodie?”

Kise’s eyes flicker over and his eyes widen a bit. He bites his lip, “Um….maybe his friend?”

“Huh,” is all Aomine says as he gets up and starts walking in their direction.

Kise runs after him, his eyes wide and confused, “What are you _doing_ , Aominecchi!”

“Getting a closer look,” he says as he walks over to the building across the street from the restaurant.

“They are going to see us and then it’ll be over! We have to stay in the shadows that’s how surveying wor-”

Without thinking, Aomine pulls Kise in, wrapping his hand around the back of his head, and tucking his neck in the crook of Aomine’s neck. Kise lets out a surprised yelp.

“What are you doing, Aominecchi?” He asks softly.

“Watch them for me– this is our cover,” he buries his nose into Kise’s neck.

And then it hits him what he has done. And while his brain screams for a redo, but he can’t because Hoodie had looked in their direction and he did the first thing that came to his mind. Without thinking about repercussions. Satsuki always lectures him and tells him to think before he acts. He should listen to her. She’s always right. Guhhhhhh. Holding Kise tightly, his nose can feel everything from Kise’s breathing to his heartbeat pulsing. Kise doesn’t lean into him, and Aomine doesn’t expect him to. And he doesn’t want him to. Because the sensations are already distracting enough. He can’t help, but notice the smell of sakuras (and a bit of sweat and cologne) slowly seeping in and clouding his brain...his judgment-

“Do you see anything,” He asks, lips moving on Kise’s neck.

He feels a shiver (which makes his heartbeat quicken along with Kise’s) as well as the vibrations from his vocal cords when Kise responds, “Mr.Hoodie...is just talking with that guy…”

“What are they saying,” he tries to ignore how Kise’s breath hitches on the sensation of his lips.

“Something...about...ah wait they are heading over hold on!”

Kise shifts his face to bury his nose in Aomine’s neck and snakes his hands around his back, reaching his shoulder blades and griping on tightly. Leaning in _finally_. Wait, he didn’t mean finally. Shit. Aomine’s heart rate quickens per each warm exhale he feels on his neck. His brain focuses on that warmth that leaves and comes back like waves of the sea. Kise’s body is lean and muscular in his arms and he’s warm. Aomine craves the heat because it’s cold and Autumn and not because he wants to bring him closer so-

Aomine hears footsteps coming as well as Hoodie’s voice with his friend’s. As they pass by their foot steps seem to slow. Shit, don’t stop. He and Kise were not the best at surveillance, because obviously neither have done it before, but they didn’t fuck up too bad. At least Aomine thinks so.

“What’s up,” a voice asks.

He hears slower footsteps coming closer. Shit shit shit fuck fuck fuck shiiiittt. He thought too soon. They did fucked up real bad. Aomine tightens his grip on Kise’s back. He feels Kise’s hands clench his shirt tighter. He hugs him closer. Kise’s breathing is a little uneven. Don’t come closer. Don’t come. Go away. Shit.

“Um,” a voice responds.

It’s so close. Aomine’s mind goes blank. He doesn’t know what to do. And now-

Kise releases a small moan. Aomine has a heart attack. Who, what?! He hadn’t done anything! What will making that kind of...what will that do? They are done for. Shit, shit. Aomine also tries really hard to ignore the fact that that sound Kise just let out not only excited his brain and heart, but also his-

“Didn’t see what I thought I saw. Just a perverted couple who couldn’t wait to get to the love hotel,” the footsteps fade.

Raucous laughter is heard in response.

“Ok, they are gone,” Kise sighs into his shoulder.

Immediately, they break apart from each other, breathless as if they had just played another three rounds of basketball. Aomine’s heart won’t stop racing; it matches the beat of the club music faintly emanating from the building they are leaning on. He’s hardcore blushing for sure. Thank god, it was nighttime.

“You were saying earlier,” Aomine clears his throat, trying to clear the weird air between them.

Kise’s eyes flicker to him and away as he coughs, “They were talking something about expecting a large birthday present in four days and that Mr. Hoodie should take special care to look forward to receiving it.”

Aomine leans back on the wall again, his hand covering his eyes, “We’ll have to somehow distract him them and intercept that shipment. I’ll let Satsuki know.”

Kise nods.

And then it was awkward again. Because Aomine didn’t know what to say. He had questions like why did you do that? Like why _that_? Why did it sound so convincing? Why hasn’t my heart stopped beating though we aren’t holding each other anymore? Will you let me hold you again to see if that was just a physiological fluke?

Kise looks down at his watch and up at Aomine again with a sheepish smile, “Wanna head back?”

Aomine nods, grateful that he was offered an infinitely better question than all of the ones he was thinking.

They walk back to the train making light conversation about the surrounding area. Oh there’s a good thai restaurant down that street and there’s a nice accessory store over there. Kise seems to know this area pretty well.

“...Aominecchi?” Kise looks at him curiously.

Aomine blinks, “Huh, what were you saying?”

“Are you ignoring me?” Kise pouts. Aomine wants to tell him to stop pouting. It’s annoying. It’s the worst because it does the worst things to him as Aomine tries to suppress the olympic flip flops his heart performing.

“Do you like italian food?” Kise asks again.

Aomine scratches his neck, “It’s alright...why?”

“That place is good,” Kise points to a quaint looking restaurant next to the train station with stucco walls.

“Oh,” is all Aomine replies. Suddenly he remembers something.

“What did you mean by cute,” Aomine asks, abruptly.

“What did I mean by what?” Kise looks at him from the ticket machine while refilling his metrocard.

“You know...cute...that nickname you gave me...you said it today at lunch,” Aomine says awkwardly, looking away.

Kise’s eyebrows furrow before he remembers, “Oh! Aominecchi?”

Aomine nods. He hates to admit that it gets less embarrassing the more Kise calls him that.

“I...I said it was cute?” Kise looks off thoughtfully cheeks coloring slightly pink, “I...wasn’t aware.”

He takes his card back and looks at the message display that announces incoming trains.

“Oh! The train is arriving, we gotta go otherwise we’ll have to wait another seven minutes!”

Maybe if Aomine was cornered and he had to say a deep dark secret to live, he’d admit that standing on that station alone with Kise for seven more minutes is not the worst thing in the world right now.

He runs after Kise though and they make the train, opting to sit comfortably next to each other. Which is okay too. He guesses.


	4. Bad Medicine

Kise walks into his apartment and flicks the light on. He holds his cellphone to his ear with his shoulder as he kicks off his shoes and pulls off his jacket.

“Everything is going fine. You had something to tell me?” he asks Ishida.

“Your assignment has ties with the police.”

It’s pretty unlike Ishida to say something so incredibly obvious, so Kise replies cheerfully, “I mean, TSA is kinda like law enforcement and they are teaming up together so-”

“No. He has a close friend who’s a pretty well known detective. Her name is Satsuki Momoi.”

Oh….Momoiichi’s part of the heat, huh. Kise remembers her very clearly: pretty, smiling face, intuitive, twinkling eyes. The way she put her hand on Aomine’s shoulder when she heard that they were “dating”. How she called him “Dai-chan”. Maybe because she was with Aomine, Kise just assumed she was a close friend of Aomine’s (maybe they dated?) and that was that. Speaking of him though, Aomine also never told him she was his contact in the police. This complicates things a lot. Kise feels restless.

“Huh,” Kise says lightly, “Didn’t know that. How troublesome~”

“Since they are in contact, maybe that would explain why they’ve been intercepting our deliveries so often at the airport you work at. In any case, Haizaki-sama would prefer if you got rid of him soon.”

“Please tell him not to rush me. I’ve completed each assignment given in a timely manner. He can trust me.”

“Sure. But you know how he is.”

Kise hums and hangs up.

Walking to his small kitchenette, he fills his tea kettle with water and waits for it to boil. Then he strolls over to his living/dining room area, and flops down on his old patchy couch.

A couple of things weigh heavy on his mind. First thing, Haizaki Shougo. What was he doing at the restaurant talking to Mr. Hoodie tonight? Kise frowns. Mr. Hoodie was a low level grunt even Kise could tell without having met him. It seems like Haizaki is scheming.

For the head of the Fukuda Sogo group, he’s never been one to be shy of going out and conducting business on his own. Kise never appreciated this fact about him. But he also kind of never liked the guy in the first place. When he was hired as the hitman for the group, he had the displeasure of meeting the guy in their headquarters in Chiba. Sitting on basically a throne, Haizaki sneered down at him even after when Kise said that he would not be disappointed in his work. For some reason, Haizaki didn’t seem to like him and Kise didn’t know why. Haizaki had dismissed him saying something about how Kise’s pretty boy face makes him want to beat the shit out of him or something. Whatever.

He already knew that Haizaki had guys all over at the airport. He knew exactly how they were smuggling in the drugs, because he had once saw Haizaki unpacking the goods at their headquarters while in the process exiting the premise. Haizaki had left the suitcase open, the drugs packed in packing paper, while he dished out blow after blow to some grunt who had made the mistake of forgetting to bring the last suitcase of that shipment. Haizaki loves to punish; he’s known for brutally beating up people who cross him.

But less hands-on work like business and schematics, he doesn’t really care about it and leaves it all to Ishida. Add this fact to what Kise saw tonight, Haizaki actually taking effort to contact his men working pickup at the airport is very strange. As he exited the restaurant with Mr. Hoodie tonight, Kise, who was very thankful he can read lips, caught on to something. Haizaki was telling Mr. Hoodie to be on the look out. But for what? Kise has a uneasy feeling in his stomach. His tea kettle is boiling. He walks over to get it.

He would need to keep an even closer eye out to see what Mr. Hoodie was looking for. It’s would obviously not be drugs or the police, that goes without saying,...unless...maybe it’s Aomine? That’s the only other thing Kise could think of that Haizaki could be worried about. Aomine, huh? That brings him to issue two because it’s all about Aomine’s. Stupid Aomine.

He digs around in his cabinets for some tea, finds some bags of earl grey, and tosses it in a mug. Aomine is a giant idiot. Who’s too stupidly honest, making him a shit actor. A really, really unsavory type of guy. His face is unshaven sometimes, he drops food on his shirt, and then immediately picks it up to eat it. He’s disgusting. They bicker all the time, he’s so hot-headed, and not willing to compromise. While looking like he’s laughing it off, Kise really can’t handle his bullshit. Sometimes when Aomine is being such an asshole to him, he’s thankful that he’ll get to off him in the end.

But the thing is Kise’s mind has been fuzzy lately. As if he drank too much liquor and is buzzed all the time. Aomine has a kind side, which is really not obvious when he first encountered his rough and gruff exterior, and he’s caught glimpses of it every now and then. Like one day on the way to work he saw the back of Aomine’s head in the crowd at the trains station. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get his attention, Kise decided to follow him. He walked to a secluded area near the airport where he watched Aomine turn towards a building with weeds around it and take out something from his pocket. Something small and fuzzy appears from the shadow and rolls around Aomine as he visibly shooing it away, pointing it towards the thing he put on the ground. The fuzzball stays still and looks as if it is eating. He pets it before leaving. When Kise goes to see him later, there’s fur on his jacket sleeve. 

That seems like how Aomine just treats people in general. On the surface, he’s an asshole, a _huge_ asshole, maybe a close contender to Haizaki for the award for the biggest asshole Kise’s ever known. But that’s the only thing he has in common with Haizaki. When he touches other people, be it the fuzzball or Momoiichi, he treats them as if they were like his most beloved pair of sneakers–rough, but with love.

Like basketball. It became abundantly clear how much Aomine loved the sport when Kise played him in the park. Rough, unpredictable, and fluid. When Kise ran in sad attempt to defend the hoop from Aomine’s oncoming attack, he saw that Aomine’s eyes shone, full of life and exhilaration. _He’s really good at basketball_ was all Kise thought when they couldn’t play anymore. Kise would have loved to go on forever. Having always played the sport as a hobby or in his downtime in Fukuda Sogo, he never felt so challenged and it was so invigorating, exciting, Kise couldn’t get enough.

Kise looked at Aomine who was sprawled next to him, his face broke out into a big carefree smile and. And. He felt like he needed to look away. Something was making his mind fog up. He needs to focus. He needs to. And he was doing so well with the focusing thing until Aomine just, out of the blue, just _pulls him to his chest_ and _holds_ him. Kise’s mind goes blank and he can’t think of anything to say. Which is a rarity.

It’s made worse when he starts to stroke his hair. The sensation of Aomine’s hands, slightly callused but warm, petting him drove his senses wild. Kise could barely pay attention anything– their little act, Haizaki, Aomine. It’s like this guy…

Kise inhales, having a sudden revelation, his heart speeding up.

What if he knows? Or maybe he’s trying to manipulate him because he knows. Make Kise lose control of his mind and then crave that bas- No, that’s impossible. Aomine is not capable of faking ignorance like Kise is. Kise is being paranoid. Calm down. Calm down. He closes his eyes and puts a hand over his chest where his heart is, as if to mentally will it to slow down.

Kise grits his teeth and stares at his mug. Steam tendrils twist in the air like little fingers reaching for the sky. He inhales and exhales, absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck. As he slides his hand back down, he stops on the area of his neck where Aomine had pressed his face into.

His heart rate begins racing again.

It’s jarring. The sudden warmth on his neck. And when Aomine spoke- his baritone voice creating vibrations throughout his skin, Kise couldn’t keep his physiological functions under control. As a trained hitman, who is supposed have had the ability to control those minute bodily functions down pat, he lost his steel-willed restraint (now molten metal) quickly with Aomine pressed against him. Kise doesn’t like all this confusion and he has a deep fear that the sole reason for it all might be something that would really throw a huge wrench, no a _whole fucking toolbox_ , into his plans.

He shakes his head. No. He might have been too lax when it’s Aomine, but maybe it’s time to clean himself off and steel himself. Aomine is nothing to worry about. He whispers this to himself a few times and then accidentally spills boiling hot tea over his hand.

“Ouch!” He says, immediately shaking the water off, “Fuck!”

 

* * *

 

Aomine walks with Kise down to the quaint Italian restaurant that Kise pointed out to him a few days ago. He curses underneath his breath.

Satsuki comes into his office, right? First, she tells him to keep his eye out because she has a hunch there’s going to be another supply run happening soon. And then she scolds him for not reading the files (again and which he also ignored). And then she has the gall to drop a bombshell offer on him (“Dai-chan stop being a big baby! We should have done this from the beginning!” “Shut up! I’m not a big baby!”).

That is to invite Kise and him to a double date with her new beau.

“What the fuck? No, I don’t want to meet your new boyfriend, as long as he doesn’t make you cry, treats you well, I’m cool with him, okay!” Aomine quickly drops his hands down from their position behind his head.

“Dai-chan, I want you to meet him! He’s great! You have to come!” Satsuki pouts.

“I don’t care! Why can’t you guys go by yourselves? Why do you have to drag me and Kise along too?!” Aomine glares at her as hard as he could. This glare usually makes travelers quiver, break down, and spill their secrets to him. But Satsuki blinks it off, smiling brightly.“Because I want to talk to Ki-chan some more! I want to meet the guy Dai-chan loves!”

Aomine feels the color drain out of his face and then shoot back up like a motherfucking geyser. Loves? Nonononono-

“I don’t-! Don’t get your panties in a twist- He’s just some guy I’m seeing right now.”

She blinks at him, expectantly. Is she wearing those falsies again. Fucking hell.

“He’s a nice piece of ass I’ve been tapping.”

The sparkles are _coming out._ The fluttering of the lashes.

“G- God! Satsuki, no!”

She pouts more. If she flutters those lashes any more faster, he’s swears they’ll fly off her face, “Dai-channnnnnnnnnn-”

“No.”

“-nnnnnnnnnn-”

Aomine glares at her in one last futile attempt.

“-nnnnnnnnn-”

“Fine. Fine! Can you shut the fuck up and leave.”

Satsuki perks up, smiling sweetly.

“Meet me at L’Amore, tomorrow at 7pm,” She giggles, “Love you Dai-chan~”

The Pink Devil he once considered to be his best friend walks out of his office. He’s a masochist to be friends with the greatest source of evil. The actual devil. Who wears falsies.

Which brings them to right now. Standing outside said restaurant, dressed in his second nicest shirt and friggin khakis, Kise beside him looking as stunning– no stupid he means stupid as usual next to him, they stop staring into the Tuscan villa-inspired windows with real ivy growing in the terracotta window planters.

Aomine takes many peeks at Kise. His face is highlighted by the yellow light spilling out of the windows of the restaurant giving his long lashes and delicate features a soft golden glow. He looks contemplative. And when his eyes flicker over to Aomine’s and Aomine immediately looks away. Because he wasn’t staring. He really wasn’t.

“You ready?” Kise’s voice is mild. He might be a little out of his element too. Maybe?

Aomine scowls and holds out his arm. Kise respond by coming close and linking his arm through Aomine’s. Aomine can smell his cologne. It’s minty.

They walk into the restaurant and ask the hostess for reservations before Satsuki sees them with her hawk-like eyes (The woman has 20/2 vision. It’s terrifying.) She stands up, in a beautiful nude colored dress with sparkly things? Sequins?? And waves at them.

“Dai-chan! Ki-chan! Over here!”

Kise breaks out into his charming smile pulling Aomine along who can only manage a grimace.

After ordering their food and drinks, and Satsuki introducing her partner who is a bookstore owner, she asks the dreaded question.

The waiter comes and pours them wine, Satsuki takes a sip, “So how did you guys meet? One day I see Dai-chan alone and the next with Ki-chan! Ki-chan, how did you meet him? He’s so insufferable, huh?”

“What-” Aomine starts.

Kise laughs, interrupting, “Aominecchi and I just…”

He looks over at Aomine, his eyes sparkling, “-bumped into each other. Then…”

Aomine stares at him. Yes, that’s good. You don’t need to say any more you idiot. Let’s move on.

Kise looks at Satsuki and blushes a little. Aomine feels his stomach dropping. Oh...god….No, he’s going to-

“He turned so red. Like a tomato! It was really cute. You see, I guess maybe Aominecchi maybe has had a crush on me for the longest time and he’s so not subtle about it-”

What. the. fuck. Is. This. All of these _lies_. LIES. Kise is fucking with them right now. Making each lie more crazy and out of proportion than the next and the worst thing of all is, Satsuki is eating this bullshit up.

“And then he reaches out and grabs my sleeve and says, ‘Don’t go. I have something to tell you.’ I turn around and my heart is beating so fast, Momoiichi, oh my god-”

Aomine has to do something. Before Satsuki gets the wrong idea. About them. Er. A _more_ wrong idea. The wronger idea. The wrongest of the wrong...Fuck eloquent wording. 

Aomine starts, “I said, ‘Your fly is down.’ And he looked down and turned bright red. It was the funniest shit ever-”

Kise glances at him, his eyes giving a competitive twinkle, “But then Aominecchi says ‘That’s okay because if I had to rate you from one through ten, I’d give you a nine, because I’m the one that you are missing’-”

Aomine sneers at him and continues, “This idiot starts crying because he’s such a fucking sap-”

Kise jumps back in, “Aominecchi is a big cheesy romantic. He reaches over and wipes my face and says, ‘If you were a tear, I would not cry for fear of losing you.’ And then we exchanged numbers. The End.”

Aomine gives him the biggest stink eye he can muster. This motherfucke-

Satsuki breaks out laughing, “It’s ok, Ki-chan. I know Dai-chan is really emotionally constipated, but I understand that you wanted to make it sound pretty for me. You don’t need to, I understand perfectly. I’m so amazed though, you two have so much chemistry.”

Aomine scoffs into his buttered bread, “Satsuki, I think you need to see an eye doctor or something because you are going blind in your old age. All we do is fight-”

“He’s so mean to me, Momoiichi, can you tell him to play nice?” Kise whines at her.

Her boyfriend looks very dazed, stuck in the midst of it all, nibbling on his bread timidly.

“You guys act like my parents. It’s like you are an old married couple or something,” Satsuki uses a napkin to dab at her eyes. She is crying from laughing so hard. What exactly is so funny?! She’s the the worst. The literal worst.

Throughout the dinner, they keep bickering, stealing the last piece of bread from each other while Satsuki’s boyfriend watches them with wonder. Satsuki keeps laughing at them and saying bullshit like wow they are so perfect for each other. Aomine makes a mental note to bug her to go to the optometrist because if she continues seeing things, it’ll be better for her if she gets help for that.

They finish dinner, making it a game to steal each other’s desserts rather than eating their own (“So if he wanted the chestnut cake.... and he wanted the chocolate lava...why didn’t they just order it for themselves in the first place,” her boyfriend asks. “Hush, honey, it’s love,” Satsuki smiles.) Aomine scores a victory over the battle to pay for the check, raising his hand high out of Kise’s reach giving it to a waiter who’s passing by. Then he realizes what he’s done and mentally curses his competitive spirit. This dinner was fucking expensive.

At the end, at the train station she gives them both hugs and waves goodbye saying, “This was so much fun! I hope we can do this again in the future. Maybe when work isn’t so busy.”

And she walks off with her beau.

Aomine turns to Kise and glares at him, “You idiot.”

Kise smiles at him, “Hmm?”

His big eyes with long lashes that seem to smile at him. That infuriatingly attractive face. Aomine...he’s filled with…..he’s filled with….Aomine grabs him close to give him another noogie. He hears Satsuki’s voice and looks up at the station to see her waving at them and her partner sticking up a hand in hello again. Aomine curses quickly and moves his hands down to circle Kise’s waist. Kise gets the point and brings his hands up around Aomine’s shoulders.

Aomine hears a giggle and then the train comes. And goes.

“Is she gone,” he ventures.

“I think so,” Kise responds softly, “You can let go of me now though, Aominecchi.”

Aomine feels like his ears had gotten sunburned or something because it totally makes sense to get sunburn at night as he drops his arms quickly and shuffles off into the train station, leaving Kise protesting behind him.

“Hey, wait up! Aominecchi~! You big meanie!!”

Aomine waits for him at the station platform. And when the next train arrives, he boards the train with Kise. They ride the train back together, sitting side by side, without saying a word.

 

* * *

 

The day has arrived. The day where the big shipment is supposed to come that Haizaki warned Mr. Hoodie about. So Aomine drags Kise, who doesn’t have another flight assigned until 3pm after doing some red-eye shifts for the past few days, to snoop with him.

The police had gotten a tip that the shipment was to arrive at 1pm. It might have been on any of the planes that Kiyoshi flew. It is now 1:10. The shipment has definitely arrived by now. So Kise finds himself in the baggage room with Aomine looking around in the carts performing a surprise secret inspection during the baggage workers’ lunch break.

“What are we looking for?” He asks Aomine, while unzipping a suitcase. There’s nothing but chocolate macadamia nuts in here, what the heck.

“Secret compartments,” Aomine’s voice is muffled because he has his sifting stick in his mouth, abandoning it for his hand which serves for a better rummaging tool, “Where it looks like there is too little goods to explain the bulk. Or if it just seems suspicious.”

Kise sits back and stares at him, “What does that mean?”

Aomine stops what he’s doing and scowls at him, “Use your brain, you idiot.”

He hears Aomine mumble, “That is if you have one at all.”

Kise pouts, “Hey!”

Aomine must still be bitter that he bested him during their double “date” with Momoiichi. With the story about how they met, to Aomine must still be bitter that he bested him during their double “date” with Momoiichi. With the story about how they met, to the food snatching, Kise somehow felt more compelled that night to prove to himself that Aomine wasn’t a distraction. Which, to his credit, Aomine wasn’t that night. Something worse happened. Kise felt so at home talking with Momoiichi and Aomine that he almost forgot that this entire thing wasn’t real. It was so comfortable and he was so at ease, he almost lamented the truth when he got in touch with reality at the end of the night. And...he still kinda does. Where did that come from? No, he doesn’t. _He_ _doesn’t_. He shakes his head, dismissing an invisible audience, and moves onto the next suitcase. “Find anything yet?” Aomine asks, huddling right next to him pulling out some dried meats for confiscation.

“No…” Kise looks at him. Hunched over, digging, face in deep concentration. Aomine is so...so–He swallows, “What am I supposed to look for again?”

“Didn’t I just tell you,” Aomine says impatiently, pulling something out before putting it back deeming it not worthy of investigation.

“I mean do they have a type of suitcase they usually put stuff in? Have you seen the suitcases the drugs come in?”

Aomine stops and sits back, squinting. He’s trying to remember. “Um. They are kind of plain and ugly. Dirty. Looks like the rest of these to be honest.”

Thank you. That’s so incredibly helpful. Kise sighs and rolls his eyes. Great, so they are searching blindly. He digs through the suitcase he’s looking in and then some packets slip out of some hideous Hawaiian shirts. They contain white powder.

“Um, Aominecchi?”

“Hmm?” He looks over and his face breaks out into a smile.

“Shit, Kise!”

He runs over and digs through Kise’s suitcase. There are more packets hidden in the neatly folded clothes. Taking the suitcase out of the trolley, he looks through the suitcases around them and they all contain small plastic baggies of powder.

“We’ve hit the motherlode! Satsuki is going to get a rise out of this,” He grins.

In the end, they sifted through almost all the suitcases in the cart. Aomine marks the last piece of luggage with some black electrical tape he found lying around to single out the suitcases that have cocaine in them. He gets up and looks at their work smugly. They had mostly packed the suitcases back where they found them but there are a few still lying around on the ground haphazardly.

“Amazing,” Kise looks around, “I didn’t know they could smuggle in so much!”

Aomine scoffs, “Right? Those fuckers think they can smuggle drugs into my turf? Heh, don’t make me laugh.”

He pulls out his cellphone to get ready to dial Momoiichi (Kise guesses) when Kise hears a voice and footsteps coming over.

“Is someone there? Yamashita?”

They both freeze. Oh god. Why now. Aren’t the workers supposed to be on break? Kise checks his watch. This guy is back early. Shit. Aomine gives him a wild look.

 _Shit. Fuck._ He mouths at Kise.

If Kise wasn’t also freaking out, he’d roll his eyes at Aomine’s really helpful comment about their situation.

The footsteps get closer.

Kise pulls Aomine close, wraps his arms around his neck, and presses his lips against Aomine’s. Aomine jots and tries to pull back, but Kise clings on to him, using his body weight and gravity to pull him back with him onto the luggage. Aomine is now balanced over him on his forearm. He’s shaking– Kise can feel the vibrations from the surface of the suitcases they are lying on. Aomine’s eyes are as big as basketballs, red faced, and bewildered. Kise can almost hear him screaming at him what the fuck WHY ARE YOU- WHAT WHY ARE WE SUCKING FACE. Kise narrows his eyes and flickers towards the direction the voice is coming from. _If you don’t do this Aomine, we are screwed. Play along with me, blockhead. Play along._

 

“Yamashita?”

Aomine eyes follow Kise’s eyes and he finally gets it. He closes his eyes and starts to act. Kise cannot resist an eye roll before closing them as well. In the murky darkness, his senses are sharpened and each touch, like electricity through wire, is amplified ten-fold. So many things are really distracting. For one, Aomine’s lips are slightly chapped which makes kissing him a bit unpleasant. But beyond that the pressure of his lips is actually...very nice and Kise finds himself curious to learn more in a morbid way and he shouldn’t be, he really shouldn’t be with his heart thudding loudly in his ears completely out of control. He ventures forth with an already muddled mind, swiping his tongue across Aomine’s bottom lip. Aomine’s mouth opens immediately, most likely in surprise though not lust, and Kise moves in. Aggressively exploring unknown territory, tongue brushing against Aomine’s teeth, tasting him, he subconsciously picks up the pace, turning his head sideways to reach a deeper kiss. Because Aomine is a black hole, pulling and tugging him in. Kise isn’t even sure if this is what he wants, or what this feeling of his insides squeezing so tightly he feels like he might explode if it continues, but he knows for the sake of an act he needs to push forward. Aomine’s arms are rigid as his brain runs on DSL and he’s slowly understanding what they are supposed to be doing.

Aomine suddenly moves his hands up to cradle Kise’s head gently and he stops him. Pulling back his lips barely touching Kise, he peers at him intensely with his dark eyes, glimmering like puddles of water in the moonlight.

Why did he stop. They need to continue. That guy is coming. He’s gonna find out and then their cover is blown. Aomine’s mouth is so close, he could just lean forward and continue, but Aomine’s grip on his head is firm. However, it’s gentle. With his stupid long fingers stroking the golden strands of Kise’s hair and it’s honestly...driving Kise crazy. Heat pools in his stomach and it starts to build in other regions, but Kise shakes his mind free from the fog to suppress these undesired reactions. He’s not really successful. Aomine examining him at close proximity, that stare stealing Kise’s breath away, emotions flashing through his eyes indecision. He’s truly...the worst actor in the world.

Kise can’t even bring himself to get mad when his mind is so jumbled. Each minute spent laying like this, he feels more closely akin to a fish on land looking for water. The distance from point A to point B is so close that a hair could fit between both of them and it could be a tight fit. Kise wants to close it. So badly. But he also doesn’t, and his body rejects all the commands his brain executes. Why doesn’t this idiot move. Kise can’t breathe. Stop with the suspense, you asshole, you jerk, the shittiest person in the history of– oh. The anxiety dissipates as he is pulled up once again. Aomine starts to kiss him softly. Each kiss is slow and long, Aomine takes his time to prolong each touch and each breath. Kise’s arms have started trembling from their perch on Aomine’s biceps, having slid down during Aomine’s moment of inability to function. This asshole never warned him that he could kiss pretty decently. Where the hell did he learn this. Fuck him. No. Wait. No– Kise sighs.

Kise slowly moves his hands up Aomine’s back, muscular and solid underneath that stupid bomber jacket. And when Aomine finally tilts his head and Kise follows suit, Aomine sucks in his lower lip and nibbles it gently. Before he realizes what he’s doing, Kise releases a soft moan. (Which to clarify was out of his conscious volition, unlike last time when they were doing surveillance, which was an act.)

“Yama- oh! Eugh, get a room! Ugh I’m gonna hurl!” The worker half walks and runs away in disgust, “Can’t believe people would do this kind of thing at an airport!”

Aomine continues to kiss him slowly, hands slowly brushing down his torso and Kise pushing up from his uncomfortable bed of suitcases (10 out of 10 would not recommend to make out on) to get more contact with Aomine’s body. Kise has his arms wrapped around Aomine’s neck, trying to get closer to Aomine who tastes like nothing he’s ever tasted, but also like something he never knew he wanted so desperately. Kise pulls back a little to breathe before plunging back into the haze that his settled over his mind probably as a byproduct of the kiss. (As if Aomine doesn’t cause enough of that already.) But then Aomine’s eyes suddenly pop open, the DSL in his brain finally connects, and he pushes himself away immediately, breaking the kiss.

Kise looks at him, face flushed, lips swollen, panting for air. Aomine glances at him and then immediately turns away, his ears reddening.

They don’t say anything until they catch their breaths and then Kise coughs, “I’m...I’m glad that...plan worked.”

Aomine doesn’t look at him. He clears his throat, “Yea.”

“You should call Momoiichi,” Kise says, standing up and brushing himself off.

He holds out a hand for Aomine, who looks at it hesitantly before taking it.

Aomine coughs again, “Let’s get out of here. I’m gonna go report this to my boss.”

“Good idea,” Kise nods.

They exit the room. After a while, the guy looking for Yamashita comes back to look around again. He’s wearing a grey hoodie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan on finishing this before I leave for vacay in 2 weeks. Here's to hoping I can. I don't want to leave ppl on a cliff hanger for 2 weeks haha.
> 
> I've watched a couple of fake dating romcoms for inspiration. Thanks to google for the most embarrassing pickup lines.
> 
> Edit. Rewrote the kiss. Wow. I need to spend more time editing before posting. Apologies for awk phrasing.


	5. Lay Your Hands On Me

“Can you lift your hands for me?” Aomine drones.

The traveler, a man in a suit, raises his arms and Aomine proceeds to pat him down. It’s been a few days since Satsuki whisked in and confiscated almost an entire cart full of suitcases packed with cocaine. That incident is also known as the day he and Kise made out on the same luggage that was taken away. And there are a bunch of things that have been running around in his mind and throwing it into such disarray that he doesn’t even know how to tackle the mess so that he can even begin to put things back together. Which, to put into perspective, when he doesn’t really deal with complex emotions on a daily basis, add Kise, add whatever this thing is that they have going on (dating? “dating”?), this equates to some kind of crazy explosive reaction in his brain. Like his brain as a chemistry experiment. Wait, what the fuck does chemistry have to do with anything? Aomine groans, as he moves to sit behind the monitor of the conveyor belt.His coworker, Imayoshi, gives him a look, coming back from reorganizing the bins for people to put their stuff in as they walk through security.

“Something a-matter, Aomine” he says, joining Aomine looking at the screen.

“Does it look like something’s a-matter?” Aomine grumbles, pausing the conveyor belt, reversing it to look at the bag on screen again.

He doesn’t really want to talk about it. Because that would mean thinking about some airheaded pilot with soft hair and a pretty smile–AND then the confusing thoughts will flood his brain again, and...yea. How about not.

“You tell me. I’d say if you scowl any more than how you usually do, your face will get stuck that way. But then maybe it’s already stuck because you kind of always look like that,” Imayoshi beckons a confused traveler through the gate.

Aomine glares sharp, _sharp_ daggers at him, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Okay,” Imayoshi shrugs, “So...somebody on the rumor mill says that you and some pilot are a thing. Ryouta Kise?”

There it is. The thing he doesn’t want to talk about. Brought up, even when he dropped a boatload of hints about how he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Yea,” is all he says. No more. That’s all he’s gonna get. If he’s so curious, then he can go back to that damn rumor mill and ask around.

Chucking, Imayoshi quirks a brow and walks off to help pass out bins to incoming travelers in the security line.

Jerk. Now having been _forced_ into this mindset, he can’t stop thinking about it. First off, Aomine will admit he’s really fucking terrible at playing pretend and he knew from the beginning. Ever since day one when Kise put his hand over his, and his hand was so soft, Aomine felt like he was trapped inside a slowly deflating balloon. Each time, Kise touches him or holds him close, Aomine feels his heart pounding so hard in his chest that the people around him could probably hear it and getting so overcome by just Kise that he forgets how to breathe because it’s Kise. It’s come to the point that when he sees Kise, he can’t relax– he stands stiffly, tries to avoid contact, shirking off anything that might raise the adrenaline that starts pumping in his veins which makes him  barely able to control himself from shaking or jumping every time Kise pulls him close. 

One thing he knows for sure, he’s not so sure if this pretending-to-date thing is truly a thing anymore. The dating part, maybe, because Kise’s sure as hell willing to go full throttle into the act. Hell, he wasn’t even the least bit hesitant when he pulled Aomine down and kissed him. And if that didn’t cause Aomine’s brain to shortcircuit, adding tongue into the equation after he...he– Aomine scowls and turns Wakamatsu, on his other side, announcing that he’s going on break. He walks away without bothering to hear an answer with Wakamatsu sputtering behind him.

Because Satsuki is a psychic or has highly developed psychic powers, she calls him right at that moment, and Aomine answers after letting it ring a bit.

“Yea.”

She starts, her voice bubbly, “Dai-chan, we’ve found–Hey, what’s wrong?”

He groans, more loudly this time, “Why does everyone think there’s something wrong with me?”

“Please. I’ve known you since forever, Dai-chan,” Satsuki pshaws over the phone, “You can’t hide anything from me. So tell me, what’s wrong. Or I’ll have to come over and track you down and make you tell me.”

Aomine lets out an impatient exhale, “Goddamn it. You suck a lot, Satsuki, do you know that?”

Her giggle rings over the speakers of his cellphone.

“So…” Aomine doesn’t even know where to start, “Uh...so when you are with someone, and you don’t know why, but it’s like...if I ran 100 laps and it’s hard to be around them, and I don’t want to be but also it’s like I don’t dislike the guy.”

Satsuki hums, “I don’t think I understand what you are saying. Like are you-”

“No–Damn it,” Aomine struggles, “I don’t hate the guy, but I’m dying when I’m around them or something. Not real dying, but you know!”

“Do you mean like shortness of breath and heart palpitations?” she asks.

“Fucking hell, are you a psychic?” Aomine says, dropping into a lounge chair in an empty waiting area.

“Oh Dai-chan,” she tuts at him through the speakers, “What would Ki-chan think about you falling in love with someone else?”

“The fuck d’you-”, Aomine starts.

Wait, right she thinks they are dating too. Does she really believe that they are? Satsuki is uncanny at reading people. Aomine thought she’d be quick figure it out and confront him about it after she caught them in the cafe. But maybe it’s because of the case or something, but she never asked so then if she didn’t notice–then–then–Damn it, this makes this so hard. This requires too much mental processing, his brain is malfunctioning.

“Wait,” she pauses, “Is this not about someone else? Then is it about Ki-chan? Oh my god! Are you falling in love with Ki-chan again? You big cheesy romantic you, oh my god Dai-ch-”

Aomine pulls the phone away from his ear because he doesn’t want to listen to her gush. When he brings it back to his ear, it’s silent. Good. She’s stopped.

“Are you done?” he mutters in annoyance, “It’s not like that. I didn’t even l-...have feelings for the guy when you saw us in the cafe.”

She laughs in his ear. It’s so obnoxious, “But then it’d developed and now you are in a whirlwind romance and he’s on your mind all the time and-”

“Satsuki, I am going to hang up-” he threatens. She has no basis or proof about that….how dare she be...so right–but it’s NOT a _romance_! It’s entirely fake! Not real!

“Ok, ok Dai-chan,” she cackles, “In short, I think you are in love. With Ki-chan. If you don’t dislike him, but it’s hard be around him then you are either in love or crushing really hard on him. But you don’t need to worry because you already with him-”

Aomine hangs up. No. She’s wrong. They are faking it for Kise’s sake. And for convenience. So these feelings must also be fake. Even if they seem so real. Especially when Aomine recalls, again, that he’s so bad at pretending in general. So bad that people know when he’s faking it so when people believe it it must be real. But it’s not.

Aomine’s reasoning is that maybe every once in a thousand years Satsuki could be wrong because she’s human. (He’s 99% sure anyway.) Satsuki, born with her vivacious personality, became friends with him when they were kids. And then one day, they started playing basketball for fun. She told him then that he was good at basketball and maybe he could do great things. Several years later, he was playing basketball in middle school and she signed on as manager. That team made a name for themselves and they conquered the league. Then in college, when he was struggling to think of what he should do next, she subtly coerced him into law enforcement. (Ok not coerced, but if she kept saying it was so great, he had to see it for himself.) She said he’d do great with basketball–she was right. She said he’d like being a cop–she was right. She’s usually right about most things in his life to her credit with her best friend status.

But she’s wrong about this. This thing between Kise and him, whatever it is, it’s not what she thinks it is. Aomine rejects the feeling how that doesn’t even sound convincing to himself anymore.

Satsuki tries to call him again, but he sends her straight to voicemail. Aomine slumps into his seat. People wander through the terminal, chatting, looking for their gates. It’s too loud to think here. And he also doesn’t want to think. His brain hurts from doing too much of it. Actually...he could go for a nap. He decides to go off to his favorite hangar and slack off for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

Kise leans back on grimy brick walls on a rainy night in downtown Tokyo. The alley is dark and the rain, lightly falling, washes away any smells that might leak from the dumpster. Ishida had called earlier and asked for several quick jobs due to the botched operation at the airport that Aomine had reported to Momoiichi. So basically the reason why his assignments were slated to die tonight was because of him. As if Kise didn’t have enough on his plate to worry about. His current mark’s normal habits for this time of day was to come around to this back alley and go into the kitchens at a this low key ramen joint. He’ll come by, go in, chat and eat ramen. Then he’ll leave out the front and walk back home. Simple and predictable. This should be a breeze. And as anticipated, he’s here. Kise moves.

Letting the rain conceal the sounds of his footsteps, he reaches out, covers the guy’s mouth with a handkerchief soaked with chloroform, and drags him behind a dumpster. Then he pulls out a syringe, bites off the cap, and injects a lethal drug cocktail into his veins, tossing an empty packet with trace amounts of drugs next to him as evidence to the police. He leaves him writhing and convulsing behind the dumpster. Eventually, his target slumps over. His grey hoodie is soaked with dirty alley water.

Kise bites his lip as he briskly walks down the street. He’s never felt this bad about a hit before. Mr. Hoodie didn’t deserve to die; as a low level grunt working in the line of fire becoming the scapegoat for Haizaki’s volatile fury. But because he’s a hitman, he’s working in the underworld, it’s not his place to question his client’s motives. But...Mr. Hoodie was an unintentional sacrifice in his plot to get rid of Aomine. He should have foreseen and stopped it. But he was distracted. And now he’s furious with himself. Kise sniffs loudly.

Like how garbage piles up into mountains at dumps, each pile eventually sharing overlapping garbage with its neighbor, this mess he’s cleaning up now shares overlap with his first assignment. Aomine. Kise sulks. Aomine has become a bigger mess than he had expected.

Aomine. What is he to him? He thinks about their kiss and how he just about melted like ice cream in the sun in Aomine’s arms. Or when Aomine held him. Or when he played basketball with him and Aomine laughed so naturally, Kise found himself dumbfounded. He keeps losing his objectives, his focus, himself when he’s with Aomine. It’s incredibly frustrating because Kise prides himself on excelling at juggling the multiple tasks and identities he has. He’s Ryouta Kise the pilot, Ryouta Kise the anonymous informant, Ryouta Kise who is in a fake relationship with Aomine, and Seven the hitman contracted by Fukuda Sogo to kill Aomine. He knows he’s able to switch effortlessly between these roles and execute his plans perfectly. But it seems like these days when it is just Aomine, Kise wonders which of those roles he truly is with Aomine. At this point he’s not wondering though, he knows, but he’s not willing to admit it.

Frustratedly, he blows his damp hair out of his eyes. Kise’s pocket vibrates and he pulls out his phone to check his messages, blocking out the rain with his hand to protect the display.

 

> From: Aomine
> 
> To: Kise
> 
> Kise. I just remembered something. Do you have a normal work schedule tomorrow?

Kise’s brow furrows in confusion. What does that even mean? Why is this guy always so cryptic in his messages? What is wrong with just telling him over the phone? He knows that’s hypocritical. The point of everything that’s happened with Aomine was so he could get close to him. If they started with a text and call sort of relationship, he wouldn’t have had the need to get to know Aomine. If they had started with that relationship of staying within the anonymous informant/police boundaries, it would have been cleaner and Kise might have been able to finish his assignment earlier. But then he couldn’t use the excuse of saying he’s using dating as the cover. He wouldn’t have needed to hold his hand in public, lean into his broad shoulders, feel the vibration of his voice from his chest, Aomine’s laugh, Aomine’s smile, even when he gives him noogies because he’s just so mean– Kise shakes his head. The rain falls down harder.

 

> From: Kise
> 
> To: Aomine
> 
> No problem~ I can reshuffle things around! (｡´∀｀)ﾉ Do you have to tell me in person? ( ・◇・)？

Aomine’s response is a short _yes_. He’s as abrupt as ever. Kise smiles softly. He can’t explain why that would make him feel so at ease. Maybe he is a masochist.

Kise types in an emoticon riddled (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ _good night_ ( ˘ ³˘)♥. There is a pause and then Aomine responds with a curt _night_ and Kise puts his phone in his pocket. He sighs again looking at the sky. It’s dark and at this angle, the rain pelts his eyes. It’s really painful. This was a bad idea. He shakes his head and looks down again, walking to the train station.

The deadline for Aomine is coming fast. He’ll need to start planning the full details of the assassination that he’s been pushing it off. It wasn’t even as if he hadn’t tried either. The more he thinkst about it as time passed, he realizes he didn’t want to think about it. Even wondering about simple logistics, he’d procrastinate. How should the job be done? He’d find himself thinking about what he’d say to Aomine next time they met. What weapon would be best? He’d find himself thinking about how nice it is that there are gloves and mittens in the winter so they can hold hands without their hands turning into cubes of ice. Maybe a gun with a silencer? How about a lunchtime meet up in the cafeteria where they just sit in silence, enjoying each other’s company. Carbon monoxide? He’d wonder why it’s hard to breathe these days when Aomine is close by.

“Augh,” Kise exclaims out loud to no one but himself.

What is he going to do with everything? Maybe it’s best to keep the act going and maybe when the deadline gets closer, he’ll know what to do.

Procrastination isn’t the best plan of action. Kise knows that.

But what else can he do? His mind is overtaken by thoughts of Aomine, and not even the right ones, and the best Kise knows how to deal is to just wait it out.

Because maybe the answers will come. Or it’ll just go away. And then he can return to normal. Normal...that’s what he wants right?

Kise doesn’t understand why he has a hard time swallowing as he enters the train.

 

* * *

 

Aomine walks ahead as Kise follows behind him towards the unused airplane hangar he often visits alone. Bringing Kise along, he understands that this secret workplace getaway will never be his secret again. But somehow he’s okay with that.

As he lounged on the roof yesterday, napping on and off and watching the planes take off, he suddenly remembered what he witnessed several months ago. Even without Satsuki around to call him an idiot because he thought he was a huge idiot for forgetting something so so important, he figured if he witnessed something gang related there before who’s to say he won’t see something again. Upon this realization, he sat up and immediately wanted to call Kise to get him to come over so they could investigate. But then with his contacts pulled up, he paused on Kise’s name in his contacts, with Satsuki’s (annoying) voice ringing in his mind– _I think you’re in love. With Ki-chan_ –playing over and over. His heart was pounding so loudly just by reading his name. He realized. She was right. Satsuki is always right. Damn.

He has developed some serious feelings about Kise. It might be love. But having not ever experienced love (lust is not love even Aomine can tell the difference), he’s not willing to haphazardly throw around a word that denotes cheesy sparkling hearts, fuzzy feelings, something that takes his insides on a rollercoaster ride when he thinks about Kise being his idiotic self. He’s _not_ a romantic. He’s really not. He doesn’t want to go to that stupid cafe that started it all and not talk about work but about them. He doesn’t want to take advantage of working in an airport and go with Kise to some place in the country where they could spend time under the night sky, counting the stars after playing basketball all day. He especially does not want to watch sunsets with Kise, huddled up so close against him that he can feel every time Kise’s rib cage expands and contracts perfectly in sync with the rhythm of his breathing. He _doesn’t_ want all of that.

But then he finds himself meeting Kise at lunch today, and saying _hey I have a hunch that we might be able to see something in this location_. And then taking Kise with him so they can survey the area and watch for suspicious activity for the rest of the afternoon. He’s _totally_ not skipping work so he can sit on some roof alone with Kise.

He takes Kise’s hand and helps him up to the top of the roof, Kise panting a little from the climb, his cheeks rosy in the winter air. He’s gorgeous.

They settle near the edge of the roof, getting a bird’s eye view of the entire tarmac, and the airport from afar with little trucks moving around, airplanes taking off, and people milling about.

“So why here? You didn’t tell me the reason why earlier and was so hush hush about it,” Kise’s eyes are looking at the distance. He’s dimpling. Highlighted with the light from the clear skies above, Aomine never had to suppress the urge to kiss a dimple before. There’s a first time for everything.

“Uh,” Aomine starts smoothly, “I saw something here. A few months ago.”

Kise turns to him, curious.

“Well, uh,” Aomine scratches his ear, “I was napping here and I kinda stayed longer than I usually would. So I was climbing back down and then there was a fight or something inside.”

Kise’s pretty forehead wrinkles as he digests what he’s hearing, “A...fight?”

“Yea, it was pretty one-sided. This guy just picks the other guy up and throws him and he crashes into the wall. I was trying to get out as quietly as possible, but then I-” He sighed and put a hand on his face, “I tripped and fell onto the walls of the hangar.”

Aomine knocks on the roof. It makes a tinny thump sound that reverberates around them.

“Not exactly subtle,” Aomine says, looking at Kise.

Kise stares at him incredulously, “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“No. I dunno? I forgot,” Aomine says, albeit guiltily. He really had forgotten about it– the shock of seeing that fight and trying to get home so he could get onto his normal nighttime routine wiped out any common sense he had. That and the crazy series of events that happened afterwards.

Kise blinks at him and smiles softly, “Aominecchi, you are such an idiot. You work as TSA too. Your job is to look for _these_ kinds of things.”

“I- I-,”Aomine flushes, “Damn, It was an honest mistake!”

“Stupid,” Kise corrects him, “It was an honest stupid mistake. Because you are so stupid.”

“Shut up,” Aomine grumbles. Even though Kise is totally right, but he’ll never let him know.

“You should tell Momoiichi though,” Kise says, wrapping his coat around himself tighter.

He pauses and then looks at Aomine, “I’m glad I brought my coat out here, it’s freezing. You spend so much time up here, it shows. I guess it seems like that saying idiots don’t get sick is true with you, Aominecchi. Though maybe you don’t get sick, you just get dumber.”

“You little-!” Aomine grabs him and begins to noogie him, with Kise protesting and laughing underneath his arm.

“Focus on the damn task at hand,” Aomine finishes by ruffling Kise’s hair lightly.

Kise peeks at him and giving him a smile. Aomine looks away to avoid going into cardiac arrest. They sit there for a couple of hours observing everything. No one comes along, but looking at the airport from afar is really serene.

“I can see why you like it here,” Kise says eventually breaking the silence, “It’s really quiet.”

He’s laying on his stomach next to Aomine, his shoulder barely touching his. Aomine’s heart is having a mini dance party in his chest and he’s the grumpy neighbor next door. It’s been like this for hours.

“Yea,” Aomine has nothing else to say. He’s surprised he can manage to sound normal when internally, he’s anything but.

Kise shivers a little. Aomine notices and looks at him. Kise gives him a sheepish smile, “I wish I brought something thicker.”

Aomine smirks, “I’d say don’t get sick, but you’re an idiot, too.”

“Hey!” Kise pouts at him, his lips red (or redder from the cold?), “You are not allowed to say that when you forgot to tell Momoiichi you are a witness to the case, stupid!”

Aomine gives him a playful gentle push to the side of Kise’s head, Kise protests. Aomine looks away, laughing. He’s considering a thought. Should he? He wants to. He wants to so badly. Kise is so close. Not even inches or centimeters, but _millimeters_. He exhales lightly. He could just try it. Like they are “dating” anyway. Kise has been so bold with his performance, it should be fine. But, it’s also not an act. But-

Kise shivers again and Aomine decides to go for it. He reaches over and wraps his arm around Kise’s shoulders and brings him closer. Kise stops shivering. He turns his head to look at Aomine, his mouth slightly open in surprise, golden eyes glowing intensely.

“Aominecchi…” He says softly.

Planes take off in the distance. Days are shorter because it is winter. The sky is getting closer to sunset, sky painted in vivid reds and purples.

He is so close. Like last time in the baggage room. When Aomine couldn’t function because he didn’t know what was happening and had to wait for his brain to catch up. But now he knows more than he didn’t know back then and he knows he won’t be surprised anymore because he knows he wants to. He leans close to Kise, nose brushing besides Kise’s, his mouth a pencil’s width away from Kise’s. He can feel Kise’s breath on his lips.

Kise’s eyes are lowered, his pupils are like the sun peeking through sweeps of long lashes. He’s so, so, so gorgeous up close. Aomine leans even closer, making their lips touch but just barely.

Is it just him or is Kise taking shallow breaths? Is he preparing himself? Aomine can feel Kise’s muscles twitch underneath his arm. He wants to move close, but for some reason he can’t. It’s already too late to turn back, but...but…

Kise blinks and tilts his head forward, pressing his lips to Aomine’s, sealing the deal. Aomine’s heart pretty much breaks out of his chest and starts dancing disco. Electricity courses through his veins as if the kiss generates power. And if it could, he thinks it could power a whole block of buildings. He pulls Kise closer as Kise leans into him.

He kisses Kise, ignoring the sky awash with colors, ignoring that it’s sunset. He kisses Kise forgetting how to breathe and focusing on sensations, everything is going wild with bursts of adrenaline creating a colorful metaphysical landscape around them. Kise is the only tangible thing in the world, molding his body close, not because he’s cold, how could he be when Aomine’s skin is on fire just from the pressure of Kise’s body against his. Is Kise feeling this? Everything? This is elation and this is happiness. It’s like he won the lottery and Aomine is taken up to a higher plane. Soaring, floating, above the clouds like one of the planes Kise flies. The seconds tick by and Aomine is more and more sure that the thing he feels for Kise– it’s not nothing. It’s something so obvious that its probably visible from space. And he wants to keep doing this. In the morning, when he wakes. At night, as a token to remember him by to take into the land of dreams. Out of the blue, when Aomine’s overtaken with how wonderful he is and wants to remember how it feels like again to kiss him because he forgets each time he stops. As predicted, when they go on a date and want to end it perfectly like sprinkles on top.

Eventually they both pull back at the same time because unfortunately humans evolved to need a certain amount of oxygen to live. But only far enough that their lips are still touching. Kise’s cheeks are rosier than ever, the pink spreads to his nose and it’s _so endearing_. Aomine traces the outline of Kise’s lips with his mouth. Kise’s breathing quickens all over again.

“Aominecchi,” he sighs moving his mouth to catch Aomine’s, always missing by just a hair.

Aomine chuckles, low and brushes the hair out of Kise’s eyes, leaning forward missing on purpose, pressing his lips near the corner of Kise’s mouth, Kise falling for his trick every time chasing after his lips in this little game of tag with their mouths. His nose brushes lightly against the side of Kise’s, gently moving upwards until he can feel the small fluff of air created when Kise blinks. He moves his mouth up kissing upwards from the tip of his nose and placing the final kiss in between the middle of Kise’s delicate trimmed eyebrows. Kise sighs again and moves closer, bringing his other arm to rest around Aomine’s shoulders.

Kise’s finger tips entwine with his hair, tugging it lightly sending sparks like thunderbolts down his body and he lets Kise join their heads back in alignment once again. This time, it’s more fast paced as they decide to explore each other’s mouths more thoroughly. Aomine rolls onto his back and pulls Kise on top of him, the indents of the hangar rooftop dig uncomfortably into his back but he doesn’t care.

They stay that way for a while. Kise’s hands combing through his short hair, Aomine holding onto Kise tightly, taking a quick course on how Kise likes to be kissed. For one, he learns that it drives Kise wild when he sucks at his bottom lip. He lets out a muffled sound into Aomine’s mouth that echoes throughout his body and Aomine holds him tighter for fear the vibrations might shake him out of his grasp. It doesn’t. But Kise being how he is, he mirrors the same technique on Aomine and….in the end it’s decided that they both liked it sweet and rough. When they broke for air for the last time, somehow they end up in mid roll, Aomine’s legs tangled up with Kise.

Breathing heavily, they stare at each other. Kise is flushed pink as the sky behind him, his head is surrounded in a bright rim light again. But instead of ignoring him and looking at the sky, Aomine is floored by his beauty. His eyes gleam and reflect the blue in the darkening sky, his hair glittery gold.

“What?” Kise asks, tentatively, Aomine’s ogling probably makes him uncomfortable.

“You are so,” Aomine starts, “out of this world.”

His eyes widen, “Huh?”

“Uh,” Aomine says elegantly scratching his neck. Damn, why is it so hard to communicate how he feels. Kise is stunning. Kise is amazing. Is this love? He can’t stop staring at the person next to him.

“Kise,” he tries again, “I’m not good at pretending.”

Kise stares at him and then breaks out laughing, his head dropping into his arms. Even his laughter is making Aomine’s heart soar, but he ignores that in favor of ruffling Kise’s hair on the side of his head, messing it up so some of it sticks up in the hair. Kise doesn’t move to fix it.

“I know,” Kise snorts, “You don’t need to tell me, stupid.”

Aomine sneers at him, “Shut up! What I mean to say is this-”

He reaches out and rests his thumb on Kise’s lower lip– Kise stops laughing– and points his free hand at his own lips.

“And this–I meant it,” he looks at Kise seriously, “Shit. I can’t– I can’t fake my feelings, okay?”

He feels his face heating up (honestly he hasn’t felt cold since they first arrived on the roof thanks to Kise) as Kise digests what he hears.

“What are you saying?” Kise says so softly a landing plane almost drowns him out.

Aomine rolls his eyes, face burning, watches the plane navigate to the terminal following the lights on the landing strip.

“I like you.”

Kise says nothing for a while and Aomine finally looks at him to gauge his reaction.

It’s unreadable. Aomine tries to push away the feeling of his heart dropping, from where they are three stories up, to the tarmac. Kise turns away sniffing loudly. What is he-?

“Are you crying?” Aomine reaches out to turn Kise’s face towards him. There’s a lot of emotion going on, but it’s all muddled.

“No,” Kise takes a shaky breath and swallows, “Hey, how do you see us in the future?”

Kise looks directly at him, his eyes glossy.

“Future, huh?” Aomine contemplates, eyes flickering down focusing on nothing in particular.

Kise doesn’t move and waits for an answer.

Aomine looks up at him again, “What future?”

Kise’s face droops into Aomine’s palm, but his eyebrows raise like he’s relieved. Aomine gently lifts his head up and leans closer.

“The present is our future,” Aomine says softly.

Kise’s eyes widen, his pretty face in disarray as he seems like he’s about to cry and laugh at the same time. He doesn’t say anything, biting his lip. Almost in an attempt to quell the tears. The tears might be winning out.

“Don’t,” Aomine moves closer once again, “Don’t cry. There’s no reason to.”

Kise takes staggered breaths, as Aomine peppers his face with kisses. One on each eye lid, several over his cheeks. Two on his nose. Five around his mouth. He leans back when he’s finished and Kise moves his hands to cover Aomine’s hand that’s cupping his face. He takes off the leather glove on Aomine’s hand and brings the hand up to his cheek.

“I’m not crying, see?” he says softly, nuzzling Aomine’s hand.

He stops and examines Aomine’s hands, his face still unreadable, but returning to a calmer expression. Is that sadness Aomine detects? His fingers are so close to Kise’s lips so Aomine flicks one forward and his heart does a double backflip when Kise actually moves forward to kiss it, and he keeps kissing them down the line.

“What-,” Aomine croaks after a while, needing to focus on something else because the touching Kise’s warm lips is driving him crazy, “What about you?”

Kise looks up from Aomine’s pinky finger, he coughs, “We...we aren’t done yet. With everything. But when we are, and if you still feel the same, I’ll tell you my answer.”

Aomine is really confused. What does that mean? So he asks.

And Kise replies, “Let’s keep this act until you solve the case. I’ll let you know by then.”

Then he breaks out into his blinding smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL IT'S SO CHEESY. hahahaha
> 
> So it turns out this is all I can do for the rest of this year. Sorryyy, I have to prep and finish a lot of other things before I leave on vacay. So I'm gonna end it with something fluffy and start next year with some more fluff (maybe steamy stuff hehe). 
> 
> (I'll just be going back and editing previous chapters if I have time)
> 
> Have a happy holidays and I'll see you guys next year!


	6. Burning for Love

There’s a loose thread dangling from Kise’s cardigan. It floats weightlessly, cold wind from the outside pulling it towards the bays of baggage room. Workers below operate conveyor belts moving luggage while others tow carts off to their respective planes. Kise sits on the staircase above it all, on a platform that holds the baggage room manager’s office set up as an all seeing eye above the cavernous room.

Kise always finds himself wandering over to this area when he needs some time alone to think. Bound to duty, mind and body. He knows what he has to do, but he doesn’t want to think about it. Because he’ll be reminded that he’s fucked up really bad this time, the first time for anyone who’s counting, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

The metal banister beneath his arms is bitingly cold. He can feel it through his cardigan and then...there’s that thread again. Kise raises his arm to examine it, watching it sway delicately being pulled by an invisible wind. He untangles the thread with his free hand, smoothing out all the bumps.

He has to do it soon. He can’t delay his assignment any longer. Time is ticking down and even though he didn’t give Ishida a deadline, they are under an unspoken agreement that it should be soon. But it’s gotten more complicated than Kise had anticipated. The plan was to infiltrate, spy on the other side, get close, and then kill him. It was supposed to be a quick in and out. No attachments or anything.

But...Aomine is that unexpected wind, pulling everything along as he rushes past in stealthy grace. Tantalized, he wants to follow him like that loose thread, wistfully floating with the wind, trusting that it’ll be alright if it is swept away. Okay maybe Kise’s giving an inanimate object too much credit, as he plays with the thread, rolling it between his fingers. But he hates how his heart jumps up and down like a roller coaster with many loops (is it hope?) when he thinks about floating away with the wind. Why is he feeling this way? But he can’t bear to crush these uncontainable thoughts and forget these emotions.

But...it’s not acceptable. It’s absolutely not acceptable.

Kise grits his teeth. He wraps his fingers around the base of the thread. It will never be acceptable. He needs to get serious ( _the vivid indigo of Aomine’s jacket on the hangar roof blends with the gold of the setting sun_ ), focus ( _his hands are so warm he is so warm it’s like sitting next to a fireplace how does a human emanate such heat_ ), and finish the job soon ( _“I like you”, Aomine says in his deep voice, shattering something deep within him_ ). Kise rips the thread free and flicks it off the edge of the platform. Predictably, it floats away in the wind as Kise turns around to face the person who had walked up to him.

“Kise…” Kasamatsu’s eyes widen, “What’s wrong?”

Kise bites his lip, vision liquefying, “Senpai.”

Cracks are appearing on the smooth shiny surface that is Kise.

 

* * *

 

Golden strands streak Aomine’s vision. Like thousands of threads of polished precious metal that refract whatever light, it’s like magical alchemy or something because how do they always retain and reflect so much light, Aomine is compelled to reach out and run his fingers through them to confirm that they and their owner is real. Kise hums and breaks away from their kiss to inhale, reminding Aomine that as a living functioning being, he needs oxygen to live too. Go figure.

So this is how its been. Meeting up when they can during the day, because Kise’s schedule as a pilot is always irregular and changing, going off on the pretense of eating together as a “couple”, sneaking off into more private settings (or as private as they can get at work) to make out. “Work.”

To Aomine, this seems like what a normal couple would do, but fuck if he knows, he’s never been in a serious relationship long enough to experience this kind of...weird euphoric transition stage (Kise’s like a drug he can never get enough of, when he’s not around he craves everything about him). But he’s also really incredibly confused by everything. Thinking back to the _not_ -date on the rooftop, Kise had told him that he’d let him know later about how he felt.

But. What does that even mean?

Why would he want to delay his answer and then spend the next few weeks doing these things (in his empty office because all his coworkers are out doing rounds, kissing each other so long Aomine finds his lung capacity improving from all the practice) with him? Kise still hasn’t said anything, it’s a little infuriating Aomine must admit, but he kisses back with returned intoxicating fervor. Because if he’s responding, then it must mean something right? Or maybe Kise’s an even better actor Aomine gives him credit for. That’s an unsettling thought. Because Aomine doesn’t want it to be an act, he wants it to be real, and every minute Kise spends with him immersed deep in his role, Aomine’s discomfort grows. He doesn’t like all this unknown–with their status is as an relationship, what they are if they are anything–but for now it doesn’t bother him nearly enough for him to ask. Also with the fact that they spend more time sucking face rather than working on the case doesn’t really help start any important conversations. Not that Aomine wants to talk. Or anything. (But it really wouldn’t hurt to know.) Speaking of.

“We need to,” Aomine says, breaking for air, “Talk about the case. My boss is seriously getting on my ass about how little effort I’ve been giving at work.”

“That’s new,” Kise says, kissing Aomine’s jaw, “Aominecchi trying to be dilligent about work?”

Aomine cups Kise’s face and holds his head still. Kise relaxes in his touch and smiles at him; his eyes reflecting a tenderness that melts Aomine’s heart. First of all, that’s so cheesy; Aomine would cringe except his heart really is like the mozzarella in freshly fried cheese sticks. Secondly (and more importantly), this is what he is talking about. Kise may sometimes be unreadable to Aomine, which is probably doesn’t carry much weight since Aomine has problems reading people past normal, annoying, and you-shitty-sneaky-liar (for the difficult passengers), but with tender gazes like these...Aomine’s brain just malfunctions.  

“I only care because they are hounding me about it,” Aomine blows a puff of air at Kise’s eyes and Kise flinches, instinctively pulling back.

Kise rubs at his eyes, frowning, “Okay well, there hasn’t been anything interesting going on. I think the smugglers are lying low because our discovery may have been devastating to their business. Also I checked in with Kasamatsu-senpai to see if he may have noticed anything and he said he didn’t.”

Aomine scowls, “The same as last time, huh? What a pain...Satsuki and Chief Harasawa now have higher expectations of me to pick up something new because of that massive supply bust. Being too good at my job is a big fucking pain, y’know?”

Kise rolls his eyes, “I’m floored by your modesty, Aominecchi.”

Aomine smirks at him, “Can’t be helped if I’m so great.”

Kise’s eyes gleam brightly, “With _my_ help.”

Aomine widens his grin. It’s tantalizing. When Kise gives him a look like that, challenging him, his heart rate speeds up. It’s a huge turn on and while Aomine wants to ruffle his hair and wipe that obnoxious look off his face, the urge to push him down and kiss the living daylights out of his beautiful smug face is equally strong.

Kise returns his grin, leaning in towards him, and Aomine follows suit. But then Kise blinks, fluttering his long lashes breaking the spell, and sits back on Aomine’s desk snickering, leaving Aomine’s legs missing the warmth of his tush. (Oh the _many, many things_ Aomine could say about that subject, but currently he’s more frustrated about another missed makeout opportunity. Stupid tease.) Kise’s gaze falls on a folder hidden under a pile of papers in the front of Aomine’s desk.

Curious, he pulls it over, “What’s this?”

It's those files Satsuki gave him to review a few months ago, which he never got around to reading because he was... _busy_. Yea, that's it.

Putting on a nonchalant air to mask his frustration, Aomine says, "Oh, those are the police case files. Hey, what are you-!"

Kise starts to flip through them. Aomine quickly snatches the files out from his hands, glaring at him, "Those are confidential."

Kise arches a brow, "If they are so important, why were they buried under that pile of papers? These files look untouched."

"I mean..." Aomine starts.

Kise smirks at him, "Looks like someone hasn't been doing his homework."

"What, like that is a surprise to you?" Aomine puts the files back down on the desk.

Aomine's heart flutters a little as Kise’s stupidly gorgeous face gets closer to his once more, "You know, if you’re stuck on this case right now, maybe you should study up and that'll give you some fresh ideas about what to do."

Aomine covers his face, partially because if he keeps staring he’s gonna get all flustered and shit, and groans, "Not you too."

Kise laughs lightly, "Look. I’ll go over them with you. It won't be so hard I promise."

Aomine squints at him. Kise blinks and smiles at him innocently.

"Is this some ploy for you to sneak a peek at confidential police files," Aomine takes the largest folder and whaps Kise on the head with it.

"Ouch! What was that for, Aominecchi?" Kise covers his head, protecting it from any further injury, "What would I stand to gain from learning this information, huh?"

Aomine smiles and looks down at his folder. He doesn't really want to meticulously go through the giant stack of papers, but...if it means he can spend extra time with Kise then maybe...Oh god, this is pathetic. He's fallen so hopelessly. But he’ll take what he can get.

"I'm in too deep anyway," Kise's eyes watch his own hand as it rests over Aomine's holding the folder. It twitches. When will his body stop overreacting when Kise touches him? Kise’s hands are really soft though, if anyone was curious.

Sighing, he (reluctantly) breaks out of Kise's hold and puts the folder on the desk between them, "Fine."

Kise gives him a small victorious smile that simultaneously makes him again conflicted as to what he wants to do in response (see above: give him a rough ruffle of his hair or to kiss him hard), but in a miraculous bout of self restraint, he doesn't do anything. Kise reaches to pick up the files once again, but he suddenly pauses to look at his watch, exposed from under the long dress shirt sleeves of his uniform. Frowning, he turns to Aomine and says, "Actually, raincheck. My next shift starts soon."

He gets up, leg brushing against Aomine’s, and Aomine's left leg suddenly feels colder from further loss of shared body heat. What raincheck? Next lunch break? Aomine suddenly panics because waiting twenty four hours until tomorrow seems like an eternity to see Kise again.

"Then what about tonight?'" he blurts out as Kise reaches the door.

Contemplative, Kise responds, "Well, I don’t have any morning flights scheduled for tomorrow...where do you want to meet?"

Today, Kise finishes as late as last time, and then going over these files will take a while so if they stay late in the office to do this, it might be too late for the last train–but this is not the thought process going on in Aomine's brain. (Nothing is going on in there, surprise.)

“My place,” he says too quickly without realizing the full extent to his invitation.

As Kise's eyes widen and his cheeks color, the true magnitude of what he just said hits him and all Aomine can think of is _shit_ in multiples of a hundred which are oddly in sync with his rapid heartbeat. (Is it him or is everything just really hot? Hopefully Kise won’t notice that he’s sweating profusely.)

Face unreadable yet again, Kise nods and blinks slowly, "Sure, I'd love to come over. I'll drop by after work?"

Aomine agrees and curses audibly once Kise leaves the room because he has less than nine hours before, Kise Ryouta, the guy who he’s been in a fake relationship he _really_ wants to be real, _comes_ over to _his_ place and who knows what could happen.

Aomine swallows. _Anything_ could happen.

 

* * *

 

At 10:01 pm, Kise finds himself in front of apartment room number 005 dressed in the extra change of clothes he keeps in his locker at work. In one hand, he’s holding his cellphone displaying the text of Aomine’s address and in the other a small duffel, holding a small semi automatic with a silencer, some syringes complete with cyanide injections, some toiletries, and his uniform. (There is still some indecision as to how he’s going to perform his hit, so Kise brought both to keep his options open.)

This is it. His perfect chance comes tonight when Aomine not only spills valuable info about the case to which he can deliver to Ishida, but also he finally gets to get rid of him permanently. Kise swallows, heart pounding hard. His palms are sweaty and he’s pretty sure it’s just some pre-hit nerves. That’s it. Not like he gets them often because he’s completed enough hits to not have them anymore, but hey anomalies happen, right? It’s definitely _not_ caused by something like spending the night at Aomine’s. No, that has nothing to do with anything and anyhow, he’s resolved to continue onwards. This will not be a mistake; Kise is sure of it. As sure, as weathermen are when they predict possible snowfall in the news. Because like 30% chance still means that there is a possibility of snow, right?

 

_“What do you mean you are not sure, you idiot?” Kasamatsu had said, reaching over his desk in his off-white office to slap Kise across the head._

_“Ouch! Senpai, you don’t have to be so mean,” Kise whined, protecting his head with his hands from further injury, “I don’t know what to do.”_

_Kasamatsu scowled and crossed his arms on his desk, leaning forward, “Did you and Aomine fight? Knowing him, I wouldn’t put it past him.”_

_“No, we didn’t. Aominecchi has done nothing of the sort, senpai,” Kise said softly._

_Kasamatsu continued, “Did he cheat?”_

_“No…” Kise replied._

_Kasamatsu asked, “Is he already involved?”_

_“No-” Kise started._

_“Then I don’t see the big deal! Just go on with what you are doing,” Kasamatsu exclaimed angrily, “Just don’t you idiots start making out in my luggage carts or so help me I will stuff you both into suitcases and have Kiyoshi drop you over the Pacific.”_

_Kise turned pink slightly, “That was…”_

_“Look, I don’t understand why you are so confused about. You clearly care about him a lot, just trust your gut and go with it? And if you are still confused, you guys should talk about it. In any case, do I look like a couples counselor to you? All your indecision is seriously pissing me off. You are so annoying, Kise. Get your shit together.” Kasamatsu stood up and walked over to Kise, slapping his shoulder hard._

_“Ow, meannn,” Kise looked up at Kasamatsu with teary eyes._

_Kasamatsu rolled his eyes, “Isn’t your next flight leaving soon? Go do your shift, dumbass. If he likes you and you like him, and there’s no other person unless you guys are into that kind of thing then whatever– the point is: there’s your answer.”_

_He squeezed Kise’s shoulder in encouragement and then left the office._

 

Kasamatsu advice actually turned out to be more disconcerting than comforting. Normally he would go to Kasamatsu’s and ask for advice about anything without elaborating and he’d feel better, but this time, the knot in his stomach hasn’t disappeared. It’s gotten bigger and more tangled and every time Kise thinks about what he has to do, it hurts. There’s little time left and even if he wishes deep down he wasn’t here, if one of his flights was actually delayed which could make him cancel and push it off to another day, Kise knows he has to do it eventually. It’s 10:10 and he’s killed off nine minutes standing in indecision outside of Aomine’s door. His phone buzzes. It’s probably Aomine, annoyed at his lateness. Arm shaking, trying to forget the knots in his stomach, he takes a deep breath and knocks.

Aomine answers the door with a scowl, brows furrowed, his dark hair looking damp like he got out of the shower a while ago, wearing a sweater that basically frames his collarbones and fits his lean torso well. Kise feels his face heating up as his heart starts racing again. Because well...he looks really attractive. 

“What took you so long? Another granny needed help off the plane so you decided to be a good samaritan again?” Aomine holds the door open, letting Kise step in.

“Sorry, Aominecchi,” Kise says absentmindedly, kicking off his shoes and stands awkwardly in the middle of Aomine’s apartment. There’s a small kitchenette separated by a divider into a dining/living room opening up to a balcony mostly obscured by cloth curtains. Down the hall, there is a bathroom and a room Kise supposes is Aomine’s bedroom. He flushes upon realization.

“Ok well,” Aomine says awkwardly, “You can just sit on that couch and…just drop your stuff anywhere. You want something to drink?”

“Um,” Kise says as he flops down on the couch. It’s pretty comfy, albeit a bit bouncy. “Do you have tea?”

“...Maybe Satsuki left some over here or something…” Aomine mutters from the kitchen.

Huh. The thought never passed through his mind until now, but now he’s curious…

“Have you and Momoiichi ever dated?” Kise turns from looking out at the nighttime view of outer Shibuya from the balcony to Aomine as he walks over with beverages in his hands.

Aomine makes a face and sets down the drinks first on the coffee table before responding, “Where did you get that idea from?”

Kise is unable to keep eye contact and sheepishly looks at his hands, clasped and resting on his knees, “I don’t know. You guys seem close.”

Aomine doesn’t respond immediately, walking over to sit down next to him, “She’s just my childhood friend. I mean we tried it out once for kicks, but it was just so unnatural and gross like dating my sister or something...why are you asking? Are you jealous?”

Kise feels his ears turning red as he turns to Aomine, “No! I was just curious is all-”

Aomine blinks and reaches for his beer, “Don’t be. It’s not like we are really dating anyways.”

Ouch. That stings. An already awkward night starting out with the most awkward conversation topic. Kise hasn’t forgotten about what he said to Aomine. But in light of more pertinent matters, he chose to push it aside for now. In the outcome after tonight, anyways it shouldn’t really make a difference anyways. Ignoring another twist from the knots in his stomach, Kise reaches out for his mug to fill the silence and he notices the files from earlier.

“The files,” he says clearing his throat.

Aomine’s scowl lessens as he picks up the folder, “Yea, as promised.”

Kise reaches out to take the folder and Aomine childishly holds it out of his reach. Kise pouts at him and whines, not because he’s upset or offended that Aomine won’t share because in the end he’ll get the details anyway, but he knows Aomine is doing it to get a rise out of him and he’ll let him have that if he can see his gloriously handsome smile. And when Aomine does just that, even if he predicted it, his heart is fluttering out of his control and he feels like a glass filled to the brim. For that moment, he forgets the reason why he is here and wants it to be just like this. Simply by his side with no strings attached.

They spend a while looking through the files. Occasionally, Aomine finds something new and interesting, tells Kise to shut up for a second, and intensely reads the material. ( _He’s so stupid for not looking through these earlier._ ) Kise takes these moments to look around. Upon staring blankly at the line where the rug meets hardwood floor, he realizes that Aomine’s house is in an unusual cleany state. Telltale signs of hidden mess can be found here and there: an arm of a shirt poking out from one of those decorative storage bins, papers shoved under the storage unit holding up his tv, his garbage can in the kitchen filled almost to the brim with garbage, hinting to the fact that Aomine must have hastily cleaned the house recently, if not right before he stopped by. If that’s true...well Kise’s not going to entertain the possibility because he doesn’t want to allow himself to feel like he’s going to break through the ceiling powered by pure elation. He allows himself to smile though.

Kise pulls out the teabag from his mug before the tea becomes too bitter. They’ve been studying for a while–this is his third cup of tea and Aomine’s second cup of coffee after his beer. The last train has left a while ago, but they are still up looking through the files. If not for the caffeine, he wouldn’t be able to stay awake. Aomine shows no signs of tiredness. Without thinking, Kise puts the mug by his side on the unoccupied couch cushion instead of the coffee table.

At some point in time, maybe after the third tea run, Kise has shifted over, so closely to Aomine that he could just move his legs and they’d brush against Aomine’s. However currently, Aomine’s too engrossed in looking through the files to notice. It doesn’t help that Kise really antsy because 1) he’s drank a lot of caffeinated tea leading to 2) because there’s a lot of caffeine in his system, he can’t focus and 3) Aomine’s so close like so, so close. Add to the previously stated reasons the fact that he’s so compelled these days to touch Aomine even though he knows they don’t need to keep up a convincing act. (Because everyone and their mom is convinced at this point.)

Kasamatsu’s words echoes through his mind.  _You clearly care about him a lot._

Eyebrow twitching, Kise moves to distract his brain and push away unnecessary thoughts.

“Find anything interesting?” Kise asks, peering over his shoulder.

“Fukuda Sogo’s some work, huh?” Aomine lets out a whistle, “The way they dispose of people is just cruel.”

Kise hums, learning to read over Aomine’s shoulder. He is reading some small blurb about the Fukuda Sogo gang insignia which is tattooed on all members. Kise subconsciously rubs at the webbing between his thumb and index finger. Well, it’s great that the police haven’t connected the higher profile deaths he was contracted to perform to the gang. Kise can breathe a sigh of relief. But the police aren’t wrong about any of the other seemingly unrelated cases they’ve connected to Fukuda Sogo, so it’s just a matter of time. And Aomine, well, he’s not an idiot, though he seems to be from his general lazy demeanor. He’s got good instincts and with people like him and Momoi, they’ll figure it out eventually. Kise’s chest throbs as he swallows. He rests his head on Aomine’s shoulder which is lean muscle, but still comfortable. Aomine stiffens under the sudden added weight. Hands still holding the papers, he peers at Kise through the corner of his eye. Kise returns his gaze, “What?”

Aomine flushes and retorts, “I should be asking you that!”

“I’m looking at the material with you, isn’t it obvious?” Kise smiles and goes back to reading the papers in Aomine’s hands.

“Can you not do that then?” Aomine asks in a low voice.

“Do what?” Kise asks innocently, continuing to read.

Aomine put the papers down and Kise watches him, curiously. He inhales slowly when he makes eye contact. Aomine’s gaze is intense, burning, causing goosebumps of anticipation rise on his skin. Kise makes no attempt to move; Aomine’s shoulder is far too cozy.

“It’s distracting,” Aomine says quietly.

“What is,” Kise breathes, egging him on.

Aomine’s face looms closer. Kise raises his head in anticipation. He can feel Aomine’s breath near his lips, bringing shivers of excitement all over his body once again. Aomine’s eyes are half-lidded as he says, “You are.”

Kise grins as he kisses him. His hands slowly move up Aomine’s muscular back which he’s discovered before during their many lunch time meetups but he’s always wondered exactly how much of Aomine’s body is muscle. He can feel the sinews and tendons moving underneath that sweater. He uses his fingers to trace the line of his shoulder blades as Aomine brings a hand up to gently hold Kise’s face. Kise leans into his touch, loving the feel of his calloused lean hand on his face.

“You are,” Aomine says against his lips, “The biggest distraction ever.”

“Well this entire meetup,” Kise replies lazily raising his hand up to twirl it in the air, “was your idea so I guess you wanted to be distracted.”

“I guess so,” Aomine’s chuckle reverberates through Kise delightfully adding extra zing to the sparks of electricity his nerves are shooting off across his body like an air hockey puck. Or fifty.

He tilts Kise’s head and deepens their kiss. Kise grips Aomine’s shirt tightly, one arm having looped around his neck and the other grasping onto the fabric near his collar. Aomine tastes like coffee to no one’s surprise, but it’s a special coffee taste that Kise finds himself not being able to get enough off. Aomine kisses him roughly this time; per every lip nibble and break to trace lips, Kise is in absolute euphoria. Humming into their kiss and wanting more bodily contact, he leans backwards on the couch, springs creaking, gently pulling Aomine with him. Aomine’s free hand, that’s not holding his head, travels down his side until it reaches the hem of his shirt. Kise can feel his fingers playing with the fabric before his shoulder knocks into something hard followed by a subsequent muffled clatter on the ground. Wetness begins to pool underneath his back reminding him that-

“The tea!” Kise sits up, breaking the kiss and narrowing avoiding a collision with Aomine’s head, to wipe frantically at his shoulder and then to the couch cushion which has a darkening splotch of moisture as the liquid is absorbed into the fabric.

“Shit, did it spill-” Aomine begins.

“It got on my shoulder too. I’m sorry, Aominecchi! Do you have any rags I could use?” Kise asks Aomine, frantically.

Aomine sits up and points to a cupboard and Kise runs over. After the fiasco spent dabbing at the fabric on the couch and his shoulder (it’s his only change of clothes) and Aomine’s insistence that it doesn’t matter the couch is pretty old anyways and he could borrow a shirt if he wants (Kise refuses because it’s just a little damp and also his fault), they find themselves sitting crossed legged on the carpet staring at the couch and the mess of papers on the coffee table. The exhaustion has finally caught up to both of them.

Aomine yawns and stretches. Kise blinks lethargically.

“The last train has left…” Aomine glances at the clock on the wall behind them.

“Yea, like a while ago,” Kise replies staring at the couch.

“Do you want to just-,” Aomine pauses.

Kise turns to him in a tired daze. Aomine’s face is weary as well, but his cheeks flush darker and his face is scrunched up in a way that seems like he’s trying to ask something but he doesn’t know how.

“Do you want to just...stay over?” Aomine tries again, succeeding this time.

Even at this state of fatigue, Kise’s heart manages to speed up for the umpteenth time of the night at that request, “...Sure.”

Aomine gets up, “Well I guess...the couch is no go, but...I mean...you can just take the bed.”

Kise furrows his brows, “Then where will you sleep?”

“Um...the bed...it’s...big enough,” Aomine says hesitantly, scratching his neck self-consciously, “Look, I’m not trying to say anything other than if you are up to it, the bed is free...or I can call a cab for you I mean-”

Kise interrupts him, “Sure.”

It’s fine right? Even though they clearly have some serious attraction towards each other, it’ll be fine. Right? So he won’t think about anything that could happen in the dark. Not that...he would mind. But anyway he almost forgot the thing! The most important thing. The reason he came tonight. The hit thing. (Geez, Aomine calls him a distraction but it’s like the pot calling the kettle black.)

The knots are back. Kise’s smile falls a little, as he bends to pick up his duffel.

“I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” he says as Aomine watches him, curiously, “Gotta keep up nightly skin regimen.”

Aomine heads towards his room, to change into pajamas, “You know where the bathroom is…”

Kise hums and walks into the bathroom. His ears are pounding from sudden elevated blood pressure. In this bleary state of tiredness, slowly dissipating as time passes, he’s hyper aware of what he has to do. Another pang of discomfort passes through his gut.

Turning on the light, he closes the lid of the toilet and sets his duffel on top. Unzipping it, he turns to take off the hand towel from the rack and spreads it out over the bathroom sink. He pulls his semi-automatic’s case from his duffel and also the syringe set. He sets them next to each other on the towel and then examines his options. It’s time to decide.

On the left, the semi-auto. He could put on the silencer and go into the room and just shoot him in the head. It’d be the quickest way to dispose of him. Aomine would die not even knowing it was Kise. The only issues are that clean up would be a bitch because blood splatter is almost impossible to erase evidence of and also there’s a big chance of having witnesses see him leave the apartment since Aomine lives on the outskirts of Shibuya. That’s a big no-no and will make things complicated. Kise would like things to be as simple as possible at this point.

On the right, the syringe set. Clean, sterile medical grade meant for administering liquid into arteries (so basically for shots). Then several small bottles filled with cyanide which he can just inject into Aomine’s arteries and he’ll die quickly, although Kise cannot promise it’ll be painless. Clean up should be easy too.

Cyanide, it is. He’s made his decision. That was the easy part. Onto the next biggest issue, which shouldn’t be an issue but it is.

Holding the syringe up to his face, he stares at the liquid in the barrel. Inserting this into Aomine’s veins, Aomine would black out, 

Holding the syringe up to his face, he stares at the liquid in the barrel. Inserting this into Aomine’s veins, Aomine would black out, breathing unevenly, until a comatose state overtakes him. Then finally death would descend upon him and the job would be complete. This would happen quickly and hopefully painlessly. It would be easy to administer too. Kise’d walk over to Aomine’s sleeping form, under the pretense of kissing him goodnight, he can insert the syringe into his neck and leave. It would be so easy. So easy.

But for such a seemingly simple task, even at the thought of it, he can’t bring himself to even take a step towards the bedroom. His chest starts constricting, he has trouble breathing, his hands start to shake, and his vision blurs. Kise finds himself leaning against the counter, gulping down air to keep himself calm as tears threaten to fall from his eyes. The thought of...the thought of Aomine just...lying there on the bed, consciousness fading into a forever state of nothing, Kise feels his throat closing up, his heart speeds up so fast it threatens to break out of his chest cavity, and all the oxygen in the world can’t bring him relief from this kind of suffocating pain. 

Gasping as inaudibly as he can so he doesn’t call attention to himself, he shakily puts the syringe down by the sink. He hasn’t accidentally poisoned himself, has he? He shakily holds up his hands and examines them closely. No. It’s fine. It’s fine. He looks up and sees himself in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes stare back, his face is pallid, he’s broken out in a cold sweat, and his body keeps shaking.

“No, no,” Kise mumbles softly to himself.

The little bit of doubt growing in him from when all of this started has now blossomed into a realization that is strikingly clear.

It’s not fine.

Kise draws a shaky breath, the mere expansion of his lungs causes pain to shoot across his chest, “Oh god.”

He can’t do it.

He can’t kill Aomine.

Raising his hands to cover his face, he squeezes his eyes shut, letting fat teardrops drop down his face before exhaling loudly.

He knew it. It’s that stupid L word. That stupid unpredictable factor that he didn’t foresee because how could he. Emotions are as unpredictable as Aomine and he should have known better from the beginning. He can’t do it and it’s because he loves Aomine too much.

“F-fuck,” Kise whispers into his hands, body still shaking.

It’s over. It’s all over. Kise takes another deep breath trying to calm his heart down and lower his core temperature to a normal status before uncovering his face and packing the syringe and semi up and putting them back into his duffel. He washes his hands and his face and looks up to check his complexion again. A disheveled Kise looks back at him through the mirror. He sighs again, and slaps his cheeks hoping to bring some color back in them, the heaviness still incapacitating his lungs. He checks again. It’s not better, but good thing it’ll be dark in the room so Aomine won’t notice a thing.

What’s he going to do now. He might be able to get out of Fukuda Sogo’s grasp, using the resources and contacts he’s built up over the years, but another fact of the matter is Aomine’s life still is in jeopardy. And he doesn’t know what to do about that, his brain is fried from his mental breakdown. All that he can do is calm down, rest, and wait until morning to decide a plan of action.

...Rest, huh? Kise’s eyes wander to the door of the bathroom.

Aomine’s waiting in the next room.

Or maybe he’s gone ahead and passed out.

When his breathing assumes a normal pattern, Kise opens the bathroom door and peeks into the bedroom. The light on the table next to the empty side of the bed is on. He’s there, Kise confirms to himself because he needs to. Aomine’s form, under the thick comforter, lies facing towards his closet. Holding his breath, Kise walks over cautiously sinks down next to Aomine, hyper aware of every movement on the mattress. Aomine makes no movement to acknowledge Kise from his side of the bed near the windows. Is he sleeping?

“Can I turn off the light?” Kise leans back on his elbows, cringing as he moves on the mattress causes Aomine to jerk with the motion.

“Sure,” Aomine says quietly, not moving. Ah, he’s still awake.

Kise tugs on the light switch next to the bed, and the room now illuminated by soft moonlight spilling from the window. He shifts back down on the bed, even more carefully, turning to face the closet. Aomine doesn’t say anything.

What is that noise? It’s so loud, pounding, obnoxiously loud. Kise’s eyes stay open as the sound keeps rhythmically thumping away the last of his fatigue. _ThumpThumpThump_. Kise finds himself getting annoyed partially due to the fact that he’s still anxious and recovering from his panic attack. But Aomine’s neighbors sure are noisy. How can he sleep with this loud beat THUMP THUMP-ing so loudly in the walls. Kise wants to get up and walk over to scold them, but he doesn’t want to disturb Aomine again. The thumping is so loud and keeps up a regular rhythm when he tries to take in a breath, he realizes it’s hard to breathe again. Another panic attack? Now? No, not now he can’t. Kise squeezes his eyes shut, praying for the moment to pass. But the world stays the same. It’s not constricting and he doesn’t feel like he’s about to die any second. Blood is rushing to his ears. It’s not terribly unpleasant, like how it was before.

So then it’s not an attack? So then why does he feel this way? Aomine lets out an audible exhale behind him. Kise’s heartrate speeds up. Wait. Is this because he’s nervous? Not because he hasn’t calmed down, right? And the reason why he’s nervous is because Aomine is closeby, literally lying behind him, so...so...this is because….even though Aomine said nothing was going to happen and he agreed, maybe deep down he wanted something to happen. The neighbors having a late night party was a convenient excuse for wanting something more with Aomine.

He’s a failure. He couldn’t bring himself to kill Aomine tonight. He can’t complete the mission. But more importantly, he can’t because he doesn’t want to. And he knows. And Knew. Has known for the longest time and had prayed that it would just be fleeting crush, that it would just disappear like how crushes do, but it hasn’t. It’s gotten bigger, mutated into this thing, that takes away his breath, makes him yearn for touch, tastes, smells, everything that has to do with Aomine. The first time in his career of being a hitman who was so good at what he did, Kise has failed in his biggest mission. And while he’s worried about the future and all the consequences, all he wants to do right now is turn around and reach behind him to touch Aomine. And have Aomine touch him.

The rhythm of his heart starts as a countdown of half-seconds that go by. And the exponential weakening of his willpower to resist his urge.

If he listens closely, he can hear Aomine breathing. It’s too shallow for him to be sleeping. Aomine’s as awake as he.

The clock is ticking from the living room area. Kise counts the ticks.

The sounds of car horns in the distance is set off, blaring mutedly. The honks mix with the sound of the clock to make some kind of grating midnight symphony.

Aomine shifts and lies down flat on his back, the mattress shaking away the last of Kise’s inhibitions. Kise is tired of listening to annoying sounds in attempt to abate his wants.

Kise leans back a little, trying to make as little movement as possible so that the bed doesn’t creak and give him away. He reaches his arm out underneath the covers and gently drags the pads of his fingers across the bedsheet until they find purchase in something warm and soft: Aomine’s hand. Aomine predictably jolts. Kise laughs inwardly as Aomine’s little habit of reacting to his touch as never changed. His fingers crawl around before settling in Aomine’s hand as Kise moves to lay on his back as well. Aomine’s fingers wrap around his. Kise knew he wasn’t sleeping.

Kise turns his head to look over at Aomine and finds him looking at him with such intensity that completely convinces Kise that he should take this leap. And all he wants now anyway is to find someplace where he can take a deep breath and breathe. _Fine. You win, Aominecchi_ , he thinks as he throws the rest of what is holding him back (doubts? anxiety?) to the wind and rolls over to capture Aomine’s lips in his.

That night Kise learns that Aomine’s touch is all he hoped for. Each stroke, each fluid motion brings down a shower of sparks from the heavens, he commits himself one hundred percent, with his inhibitions thrown to the wind. Aomine holds him like he’s the only one in the world for him, lavishing him in an unyielding embrace, like how it always should have been and would have been if they had met under different circumstances. He clings, mentally floating, as Aomine takes him hand-in-hand, together, swathed in blankets where it’s so hot that shedding his skin wouldn’t be enough to provide relief.

Kise falls into a deep sleep for the first time in months with Aomine’s sleeping body, expanding and contracting softly, pressed against him, holding him securely so he won’t drift away and fall into the land where nightmares reside.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! And a super, long chapter for you. Sorry it took so long. I did not write over my vacation as expected hahaha orz. I hope it was good for everyone~
> 
> A couple of things:  
> -this chapter was really hard to write especially the first two parts. I had to rewrite a few parts over and over because it was just not working.
> 
> -originally there was going to be a smut scene at the end but after I wrote it, it didn't really fit and also it probably would push the word count even higher and gosh this chapter is pushing it. (I never expected to write so much.;;;) In any case, I'll upload the smut scene in an extras thing at the end so if people want to read that, it'll be there!


	7. Shot Through the Heart

Ishida walks through Fukuda Sogo’s main base located in an unassuming processing plant out in the countryside of Nagoya. Haizaki had called him in for a meeting. It was on such short notice, Ishida has a suspicion that it might not be good news.

Arriving at the end of the hall, opening up a white door that blends in with the rest of the doors down the hallway, he quietly slips in. The door closes behind him, the other side of it plated in platinum with delicate chrysanthemum designs carved onto the surface. Striding down a hall of marble statues of nude women with a backdrop of mute silver wallpaper, Ishida arrives in a large office space with sleek furniture, more statues, raunchy pin-up artwork, and some decorative book shelves with books Haizaki never reads. At the center of the room, Haizaki sits at a large crescent shaped desk, looking at his computer absentmindedly checking his email.

“Did you call for me,” Ishida says, knowing fully that Haizaki did, but pleasantries are necessary in any case.

“Ishida,” Haizaki doesn’t look up, “How’s Seven doing on his assignment? With the TSA guy?”

“Nothing seems to be out of order, he’s finalizing the last details before completing his hit,” Ishida watches Haizaki. His hand, holding his mouse, is more tense than usual. Ishida senses a storm.

“Did something come up,” Ishida asks, bracing himself.

“Remember our huge supply drop to Tokyo a week back?” Haizaki continues without waiting for a response, “I had this little feeling that something was going to happen. Like this festering hint of suspicion, call it a hunch, Ishida. So I had some dogs keep an eye out for any coppers because they’ve been giving us hell for the past few months.”

He stops and twists his executive chair with arm rests covered in exotic animal fur to sneer at Ishida, “We’ve been too lax, Ishida. Our dogs need to be kept on tighter leashes. So tight that if they try to run away, they’ll choke on their collars and die.”

Perplexed by the bloodthirsty quality of his response, Ishida furrows his brows and tries again, “Did something happen?”

Haizaki clasps his hands together and leans onto his desk, “One of our mutts caught some guy with a blond mug sucking face with the same TSA agent, who in my opinion should have been dead by now. Now, tell me, Ishida, what do you make of that?”

Ishida stares at Haizaki blankly. Blond...mug...does he mean Kise? Kise was seen making out with the target, Aomine?

“I had a feeling about him when we first got him,” Haizaki says, not moving, “I thought to myself: this guy–just look at him, I mean his face! Looks too much like a pansy to belong in this world. Like the kind of guy who is all about the do-the-right thing kind of cheesy garbage. He can’t be trusted. Should have followed that hunch and kept a closer watch on that piece of shit.”

“How can you be so sure?” Ishida says, quietly.

Haizaki raises an eyebrow, “Blond hair? Pretty boy pilot? Who else looks like that and works at that airport?”

Ishida is speechless. Never in all his years of working with Kise did he imagine that he’d betray Fukuda Sogo. Because he was never that type of guy; his eyes were too honest, his personality too loyal.

He clears his throat, “What will you have me do then?”

“I want him dead, but...I also want TSA guy dead. What was his name again? Ahomine?” Haizaki snickers at his unfunny joke.

“If I may, sir, because Seven’s track record with us is perfect,” He looks at Haizaki intently, “He’s completed each assignment within his deadline, he keeps things clean and discreet, if we wait until his deadline to see if he’s truly... defected from our ranks and if he is by then, we can take action.”

Haizaki raises an eyebrow, “What’s this, Ishida? Have you taken a shining to him? Considering how he’s sleeping with the enemy I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gotten around here. Maybe even dug his pretty fingers into you.”

“Sir, please,” Ishida, just barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, replies, “We don’t have that kind of relationship. I’m just saying he works off the grid and we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s getting close because it’s part of his plan. I’m suggesting that we wait and see. He’s working as a double agent, it’ll definitely look suspicious.”

Haizaki grins, “Heh, so Ishida suggest we lie and wait.”

“Yes, sir,” Ishida balls his fists tightly. Ishida’s more willing to trust, especially those who have gone above and beyond to earn it. He wants to believe that it’s just Kise putting up a front for his assignment. Kise has his methods. He can do it. Ishida grits his teeth.

“We’ll keep a closer eye on him and then decide what to do. Because Seven is one of our best, and it would be a huge loss for us,” Ishida grits his teeth.

Haizaki leans back and crosses his arms, “Well, well, since you are so adamant about this, what will you do if you are wrong?”

Ishida grimaces, “Then I’ll go end him myself.”

Haizaki’s eyebrows rise as he lets out an amused chuckle.

 

* * *

 

Aomine dreams of tarnished gold as he shifts a little in bed from loss of body heat. Covers are readjusted as hands gently tuck him back in.

 

* * *

 

Kise sits at the edge of the bed staring at his hands. He’s nowhere closer to an answer than he was yesterday night. Behind him, Aomine breathes slowly and evenly, deep in sleep. Kise peeks over his shoulder to look at him, his usual grouchy face relaxed into a soft boyish naivete that only shows when he’s asleep. Kise sighs, heart full of an emotional mix bag of pain and affection. Getting off the bed, he grabs and pulls on his discarded boxers from the ground, back aching, and walks over to Aomine’s side to smooth his messy hair, tenderly. While Kise gingerly brushes his short hair out of his face, Aomine keep sleeping undisturbed. _He’s quite a deep sleeper_ , Kise muses as another wave of sadness rises in Kise as he leaves Aomine’s side to walk to the kitchen.

The apartment is filled with a grayish haze that settles on everything like a veil when it’s dawn. The heater is turned on and even it is set to a comfortable twenty-eight degree celsius, he’s chilly, walking around in just his boxers. Still, he can’t be bothered to find his shirt, finding the morning sky more fascinating. Walking up to the door to the balcony, hands attempting to rub the goosebumps from his bare arms, he watches the neighborhood groggily start up once again. A car or two pass by the street and a few people are already out and about wandering the streets. Kise’s breath fogs up on the glass, reminding him of the cold, and he finally builds up the will to look for something more substantial to wear.

Glancing around, his eyes fall on a familiar bomber jacket slung over a back of a chair in the dining area. Somehow he missed that when arriving yesterday. Walking over, he picks it up, feeling the nylon between his fingers. It’s well worn and smells like Aomine, like sandalwood from his deodorant. Offhandedly, Kise drapes it around his shoulders as he sits down to think.

First off, Aomine. He needs to “disappear” (as in hide) somehow. Maybe go on vacation suddenly and give the illusion that he’s gone so that Haizaki won’t send someone else to finish the job. Aomine needs to live otherwise his efforts for keeping Fukuda Sogo away as long as possible will be for nothing. He knows deep down, because Haizaki doesn’t like him anyways, that once word gets out, he’s dead. Disappearing without a trace is not a problem for Kise. He has his contacts and knows where he could go. But Aomine is a different issue, but if things go alright, maybe he could also help him too.

Then there’s the matter of explaining all of this to him. Which is something Kise had never planned for, and now his brain is running at a hundred miles per hour trying to figure out how to break it to him. In one thousand scenarios, nothing plays perfectly and ends up how it should. Kise should have expected that if he couldn’t kill Aomine, he’d have to tell him. Besides all other consequences of facing Haizaki or needing to go underground for a while, the one he fears most is that Aomine would probably stop loving him. It hurts so much that even thinking about it makes Kise want to cry, despite the fact that its realistic and perfectly understandable. But Kise reasons that he will be content as long as Aomine lives. So he needs to do whatever he can to ensure that will happen.

Hearing footsteps, Kise looks up to see Aomine, dressed in only pajama pants, groggily leaning against the wall.

“What are you doing up?” Aomine yawns.

“Enjoying the sunrise, I guess,” Kise replies with a light chuckle.

Aomine squints at him, “You can’t watch the sunrise staring at the wall, dumbass.”

He saunters over hand reaching out towards Kise’s head, probably with the intention to ruffle his hair, when he hesitates.

“My jacket…” He says, softly.

Kise glances at the jacket quickly before moving to take it off his shoulders, “Oh, sorry Aominecchi! I was a little cold and didn’t want to disturb you in the bedroom so-”

Aomine’s hand stops his hands from pushing it off. Kise looks up and sees him flush.

“Don’t,” he mumbles, “It’s okay....you look good like this.”

“Aominecchi…” Kise quietly starts.

Aomine leans in close. Kise’s eyes automatically flutter close, as he senses Aomine’s lips ghosting his. Warm breath covers his bottom lip, he is suddenly more conscious of his breathing, each exhale mixing with Aomine’s. Aomine moves to lightly trace his lips with his own, his nose tickling Kise’s cheeks, and Kise follows along with him watching through his long lashes. They don’t move any closer, satiated with just the slightest touch of each others lips.

“Aominecchi,” Kise tries again after Aomine rests his forehead against his own.

“Yea?” he responds. Kise can feel his lips move against his.

“I…” he sighs as Aomine settles his hands temporarily on his collarbones slowly drifting downwards, fingers brushing over skin and fabric, leaving a trail of blazing heat, “I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Aomine’s lips are at the corner of his mouth.

“Um…”

Aomine’s fingers are so distracting. So are his lips. (It goes without saying that his entire persona is too.) The growing bitter wave rises in his stomach and his eyes faintly sting. Kise gently pushes Aomine back. He gazes back at him, apprehensive.

“I-I don’t know how to say this. But-” His eyebrows twitch as his face contorts, “You need to leave. As soon as possible.”

Taken aback, Aomine stands up, “What?”

Kise bites his lip, trying to get a grip over the wave of emotions that has begun to rise hot and searingly painful as if he swallowed lava, “Your life is in danger. You need to get going, you need to leave-”

Kise has placed his hands on Aomine’s shoulders, trying to push him toward the bedroom to get him to start packing. Aomine brings his hands to circle Kise’s wrists, firmly holding them back to stop him from pushing him any further, “What are you talking about, Kise? My life is in danger? How do you mean?”

Kise swallows and takes a deep breath. He’s panicking too much, which is out of character for him because his usual control of himself is pretty resolute. Looking at Aomine once again, “I’m a hitman contracted to kill you from Fukuda Sogo. I’ve failed to complete my task, but that means that someone else is coming for you.”

Aomine smirks at him, “What is up with you? Is this some kind of weird roleplay thing? I’m down I gue-”

Kise raises his voice, leaning against Aomine in attempt to get him to move, “No. No, Aominecchi, please listen.”

Aomine’s grin falls as Kise continues, “I brought with me a gun and cyanide. I had intended to inject cyanide into you and watch you die. That was the entire reason I came over! Do you want proof?”

“What?” Aomine breathes as disbelief fills his face.

“Two hundred milligrams of cyanide is enough to kill you. All I have to do is inject it into your bloodstream with a small syringe which you might not even feel. Your body would quickly start to shut down and you’d fall into a coma before dying. Why do you think I know all of this? Because _I prepped_ it to _kill_ you!”

Aomine blinks stupidly at him. He’s not getting it. Stupid. He’s so stupid he’s going to die at this rate. Kise’s mind races as he tries to figure out how to break it to him so that _stupid, careless, idiotic, obtuse_ Aomine who he loves so much will _take a hint_ and get his ass _moving_. Kise’s gaze hardens. With a sudden swing of both his arms, he breaks out of Aomine’s grip. Moving at lightning speed, he brings his right hand up to Aomine’s face. Aomine flinches instinctively as if he was expecting something else.

“Look,” Kise breathes as he flips his hand around so Aomine could see, “I have it. The red mark.”

Aomine’s pupils dart to the small red dot with the diameter of two millimeters. He squints at it. The F and S show up bright red as clear as it was the day Kise had gotten it. Kise watches Aomine’s face as he slowly processes the information.

The last thing he had read yesterday was about the Fukuda Sogo mark. Seeming like a red beauty mark or a drop of blood, it’s was tattooed on the webbing between fingers or toes on bodies that weren’t found past an extreme point of decomposition.

“You’re…” Aomine’s voice fades. He can’t finish his sentence. His eyes widen as his eyes flicker between the tatoo and Kise’s face.

Kise wants to close his eyes. He doesn’t want to see this because it hurts. He resists the urge however because Aomine needs to get the point and move. Even at the risk of whatever relationship they had built over the past few months shattering into nothing, he would do anything so that Aomine could live.

“Yes,” Kise says softly, “I am part of Fukuda Sogo. I was assigned to kill you.”

His voice cuts through the air and Aomine’s slumps back against the wall as if Kise’s words had injected cyanide into his body, shock spreading across his face.

“Please Aominecchi, listen to me when I say you should pack up your stuff and leave immediately. They’ll be coming after you soon, so please I beg you,” Kise reaches out to push Aomine to urge him to move again.

Aomine weakly pushes Kise’s hands away. Thousands of thoughts seem to be flittering past Aomine’s eyes.

“What?” he says hoarsely a moment later, “What did you say?”

Kise takes a deep breath in an attempt to push down the rising tide of emotions as he tries again, “People are coming after you. You need to leave and get to safely. Now.”

Aomine shakes his head lightly, “What did you say...before that?”

Kise’s eyes widen. The bitterness swells up, almost a breaking point, his eyes stinging. He swallows in attempt to stop himself, but moisture is gathering at the corners of his eyes.

“I was...I was contracted to kill you,” he finishes the sentence, his voice in a whisper.

“So...you were serious…” Aomine’s voice is harsh and heavy.

A heavy silence falls over them. Kise steps back, peering at Aomine’s face because he can’t look away, and feels an insurmountable pain fill his chest cavity. It’s heartbreak in the making as Aomine’s expression drives in the final stake. Kise blinks a few times in a last ditch attempt to push back the remorse. Every second Aomine delays, he’s putting himself in a position where its less likely he’ll survive. Swallowing again, Kise says mentally wincing at a small crack in his voice, “You need to get moving, Aominecc-”

“Don’t,” Aomine says steely, “Don’t call me that.”

At some point, Aomine had stopped looking at him. No more eyes that shower him with deep affection, sending him all the feelings and thoughts Aomine is too embarrassed to say. It’s radio silence as he stares at the frayed corner of the carpet on the floor.

“Please-,” Kise begs taking a step towards him.

Aomine raises his voice, “Shut up!”

 _Please get ready. Please get to safety. Please live._ Kise’s breath gets caught in his throat as tears start spilling out of his eyes.

“Get your shit and leave,” Aomine says coldly.

There are no more words. The sounds of Kise’s quiet sobs fill the space as he glances at Aomine, who won’t even look at him anymore and the ground.

The world is swaying, his nose congested and runny, his eyes swollen. Shrugging off the jacket, Kise steps forward to hand it to Aomine who is still staring at the carpet. He hangs it on Aomine’s fingertips. They curl in ever so slightly but just enough to keep his coat from falling to the floor. Kise says nothing else, walks off to the bedroom to pull on his clothes, grab his duffel and leave.

_It’s selfish to ask but-_

Aomine stands there, leaning against the wall, staring at the frayed corner of the carpet. His eyebrows twitching, his face stuck in a scowl.

_I wanted you to keep loving me even through all of this._

 

* * *

 

Big eyes stare blankly back at him, “Aomine-kun, you look terrible.”

“Shut up, Tetsu,” Aomine stirs his cup of coffee even though he’s drinking it black.

Tetsu continues to watch him. They are sitting in the cafe, the same place where it all started: with the frilly tea sets, decorative bookshelves, the chalkboard menu, and lazy cafe atmosphere. Aomine doesn’t even know why he agreed to meet Tetsu and Satsuki here when this place brings back painful memories. Appearing as if on cue, Satsuki runs in sending the wind chime near the door in a tizzy.

“Sorry, I missed the train. But I ran here as fast as I could so now let’s talk about Dai-chan,” Satsuki drops down in the seat next to Tetsu, panting, “What did I miss?”

Tetsu pushes his untouched glass of water towards her which she takes gratefully. Aomine sighs.

“This is about Kise-kun,” Tetsu looks up at him, voice questioning.

Satsuki’s eyes widen, flickering over to Aomine, “Dai-chan, what happened?”

Aomine grits his teeth, scowling. The waitress comes up to their table and brings their afternoon tea set complete with cakes.

It’s been a week since Kise left. Aomine’s...he’s fine. Going to the gym afterwards shooting some hoops kind of helped some. That and destroying anyone else who was playing on the nearby courts sort of did too. But the most helpful was the copious amounts of alcohol he has bought and consumed, leaving his paycheck dwindling and his liver crying maybe like a lot.

He has been spending a lot of time alone, because all he has is free time now, he has realized the extent of the total amount of time he spent, no, wasted with Kise. His mind wanders off whether he wants it to or not, going over everything from the beginning. Like if Kise was hired by Fukuda Sogo, then maybe their first encounter at the airport wasn’t an accident. Maybe he scouted him out, bumping into him because that was his plan all along. Then the swearing into secrecy thing was because he needed an excuse to get closer. And the tips Kise gave him calls into question their authenticity because if everything was a lie then their credibility is null and void. But Aomine cannot discount the fact that the tips also led him to Mr. Hoodie and the bust in the luggage room too. Which means that there was some truth in his lie...probably because Kise needed him to keep believing in his scheme. So then what was real and what was fake? The looks Kise gave him, the kisses, that last night? Was it all a rouse? So Kise can get close and kill him?

Compared to feeling like he is decaying from the inside, this massive heaviness that weighs down all his limbs, maybe Kise should have just done it. Just killed him off. Because then he wouldn’t feel like such an idiot for falling into Kise’s pretty hands, letting him manipulate him like a puppet. Or worse, he wouldn’t have had his heart stomped on so cruelly with the first person he thought _yea this feels right_ with.

It was always an act with Kise. Always performing and convincing everyone that the show was reality. Like a fool, Aomine believed it wholeheartedly and naively followed him. So then if everything was a performance for Kise, then it’s safe to assume that Aomine never saw the real Kise. (He has to convince himself that that the Kise he knew was a fake because...because his mind might implode if by the smallest chance that it’s not.) So then who is Ryouta Kise?

Dispersed between thinking about every little detail in his fake relationship with Kise, memories of the rooftop and of the last morning with Kise keep coming up in his mind. That day when Aomine, taken in by the moment, spilled his heartfelt guts for Kise. Kise’s cheery facade glitches for a moment, the indecision and worry flit across his face, and Aomine thinks oh, pangs of rejection fly around his stomach. When he tells Aomine to wait until everything is over (what does over mean), he’ll give Aomine his decision. Aomine had thought at least there’s some hope there. Fade to the last time Aomine saw Kise, tears streaking down his face as Aomine told him to leave (leave what is the question Aomine finds he doesn’t know the answer to). That desparate, doleful look that made Aomine want to tell him that _he takes it back_ but just for a second before the raw pain of betrayal hits. As if he was pleading him to still love him even if he fucked up so badly. As if he was asking to stay. Begging for things that would make Aomine some kind of inhuman entity to grant him after discovering he was stabbed in the back and Kise was the one slowly driving in the knife deeper and deeper.

Trust is a living thing. It thrives on relationships and their health and grows with the strength of each. Lost trust is like a deep wound that heals over time and scars over. No matter how much care and attention put on it, it won’t fade. Aomine’s not the type of guy who can brush off these kinds of metaphysical wounds and just move on normally. Feelings are involved! Feelings he just can’t even comprehend but he knows they are a vulnerable part of him that to protect it, he builds up this harsh exterior . After baring himself to someone he deeply cared and having them hack away at his vulnerability like it’s nothing, he can’t act “normal”. There’s a reason why he just doesn’t allow himself to be like this. Sentimental bullshit fucks him over every. Single. Damn. Time.

 _When this is all over you’ll know the answer_ , Kise’s eye shimmer molten gold. Well, it’s over and Aomine supposes this is the answer. It would have been way fucking easier if he had just said no. Fucking jerkwad. Cruel sadistic motherfucker.

“Dai-chan?” Satsuki tries again.

“Your face is really scary, Aomine-kun,” Tetsu adds.

Aomine breaks the stirring stick for his coffee. Tetsu stares at it.

“Did you guys break up?” Tetsu asks bluntly.

Aomine breaks his second stirring stick. He starts to reach for another but Tetsu grabs the container first and moves it out of his reach. Aomine glares daggers at him as he replies matter of factly, “It’s wasteful, Aomine-kun.”

“Oh Dai-chan,” Satsuki looks at him sadly. It’s pity. Great, more to add to the pile because in addition to getting betrayed by a loved one, he loves getting pitied. Of course. Tetsu slowly takes a bite of his shortcake, staring at him not blinking.

“What happened?” Tetsu asks, putting his cake fork down.

Aomine suddenly finds his untouched cake very fascinating. Poking at it with a fork, he mumbles, “He just…It’s because...I...decided we aren’t fit to be together...”

“Why would you? What could he do to let you think that?” Satsuki shares a look with Tetsu who gives her a shrug.

Blinking, he turns towards Aomine, “Why would you two be unfit for each other?”

“Because,” Aomine spits out, “Because...I can’t...forgive him.”

“Why can you not forgive him?” Satsuki gasps, “Did he- Did he cheat on you, Dai-chan?”

Aomine grits his teeth.

“Ki-chan...I don’t believe it,” Satsuki brings a hand to her mouth in shock.

He still doesn’t either.

Tetsu frowns as he takes another slice of cake, “I don’t know Kise-kun very well but if he cheated on you then that’s unacceptable.”

“He got us all fooled too,” Satsuki trails off, her hands on her face.

“Yup,” Aomine says, tone betraying his bitterness.

Tetsu looks at him. Aomine glares back at him. He seems to sense that there’s more to this story that he’s unwilling to tell. Aomine breaks eye contact and Tetu doesn’t push it, taking a bite out of his new cake.

They spend the rest of their time just chatting and time passes by slowly. At least spending time with friends helps keeps his mind off things and maybe by the end he’s feeling a bit better. As it gets late, Tetsu excuses himself saying he needed to go back home to feed his dog. Satsuki walks with Aomine to the train.

“For some reason, it seems too fantastical to be true,” she says breaking the silence as they walk through the street, the sun setting in the horizon.

“What is,” he asks.

“Ki-chan cheating on you. I’m sure you saw the way he looked at you...his eyes were so honest and full of affection for you,” she says swinging her arms and looking ahead.

“Satsuki, honest and Kise’s name shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence,” he replies a little too curtly.

She look at him, sadly. There’s the pity again.

“I’m sure you have met your fill of liars working in TSA as have I...I bet all my years in law enforcement that he at least cared for you a lot even if he strayed,” she peeks up at him.

Aomine doesn’t answer because she’s right and it’s too soon to allow himself the pain of knowing what could never be.

“Speaking of, did you get to look at the case files?” she asked.

What a drastic change of subject, but it’s very welcome.

“...Yea,” Aomine finally mumbles.

“You did! Oh Dai-chan! I’m so proud of you! Even if I’ve been nagging you for months to do it, you finally did it! Who’s a good boy?” she tries to ruffle his hair, in which he ducks to the side out of her reach.

“What the hell, Satsuki, I’m not a dog!” he glares at her.

“But you finally did your work! I’m glad,” she smiles, pleased, “There’s something I need to update in those files.”

“Ok,” Aomine’s tone urges her to continue.

“A few weeks ago, there was a death reported into our headquarters. A man was found dead in the dumpster. Forensics ruled that the official cause of death was drug overdose, the same kind of drug that Fukuda Sogo was smuggling. But the thing is, we found out that guy works at the airport. And actually in Baggage too,” she says.

Aomine’s eyes widen. Wait a minute. That would explain why Mr. Hoodie has not been at work for all these weeks. (They, the asshole-who-will-not-be -amed and himself, still were keeping close watch on him.) Because he died.

“Was he wearing a grey hoodie?” he asks her, tentatively.

“I didn’t see the body personally but if I remember correctly from the files, he was wearing a hoodie of some sort...why?” she looks up at him quizzically.

“Ki-...I,” Aomine corrects himself, “had been tailing that guy at work because something in my gut told me he was suspicious.”

“Is that because you thought he was connected to the case?” Satsuki responds.

“Yea, possibly...though,” Aomine pauses to think, “I never really picked him out to be a junkie.”

“Yea that’s what I also found to be strange,” Satsuki adds, “Forensics pegged him to be an occasional user, but there isn’t any scarring of track marks or anything. And then I have a hunch too, that this might not be an accidental death but a punishment delivered by Fukuda Sogo.”

Aomine suddenly feels like he just swallowed an entire desert. Swallowing, he stops walking and steps to the side, lowering his voice, "Do you think they sent someone?”

Satsuki shrugs, “Might be a possibility.”

Aomine thinks of Kise as he balls his hands into fists at his side, “How are you sure? About the punishment thing.”

Satsuki looks up at him, eyes full of conviction, “Because if he was working at the airport, and then we swooped in and grabbed their supply...someone has to pay for it right? That’s how Fukuda Sogo works. Did you remember the extra files I gave you about related deaths? This guy died via drug overdose, that’s kind of a cruel way to kill off someone don’t you think?”

Aomine remembers. He was reading about them just before Kise came by and he became distracted by his lips than reading more about the case. Aomine grits his teeth even tighter trying to repress that memory and focus. When people cross Fukuda Sogo, they die in cruel ways. One body was found on a riverbank, evidence showed that he was still alive when he was buried. Another was found without fingers on one hand, as he died being beaten to death.

“That’s my theory anyway,” she finishes.

“Are you going to tell Harasawa?” he asks cautiously.

“It’s just a hunch. I don’t have any evidence. but if you find anything that might be useful–let me know,” Satsuki smiles at him warmly, “It’d be so great if we could find a bunch of things to charge them with so if by small off chance it’s not the smuggling, then it’ll be these murders.”

Aomine hums in response and they continue walking towards the train station.

 

* * *

 

Kise fills up his schedule, so he can tell Ishida he’s too busy with work currently to update him on his progress. It’s just a temporary reprieve, however but with this time off and focusing on just flying, he can try to figure out how to approach Haizaki about how he has failed his mission.

Mai-chan stops him one day and tells him with a wink that she saw Aomine working the scanners at security. He doesn’t say anything, fakes bashfulness, and waves her off, so she doesn’t suspect anything. The news makes his stomach twists upon itself as he is not only frustrated but fearful because despite his warnings, Aomine hasn’t done anything to prepare himself for anything that could happen. It’s understandable that Aomine wouldn’t listen to him anyway, given their situation. But Kise’s frustration stems from the fact that it’s really hard to protect someone he can’t physically watch over and that makes him anxious. But Kise has to figure out a way to protect him too in any case. There’s no other option.

There’s another matter of the pain that crawls back into his heart when he thinks too much about Aomine, however work is great for diverting attentions.

Kiyoshi walks up to him, smiling. He hands Kise a croissant, “Ready for take off?”

Kise thanks him and takes a bite of croissant. That should last him until lunch.

“Nagoya, right?” He asks after swallowing.

“Yup,” Kiyoshi nods.

Kise finishes his croissant in a few bites, grabs his carry-on, and follows his crew to the gate.

 

* * *

 

Aomine lies in his bed a few nights later unable to sleep. It had been a hectic day as every day will be as upcoming holidays are approaching, so there’s a lot of work to be done in Security. He’s been glancing over the case files to find possible new leads whenever he has free time, only because he’s been having trouble sleeping these days. (Which unfortunately makes napping out of the question.) The thing is he’s freakin’ exhausted from working so hard and all he wants to do is sleep. And now, while he’s lying underneath his comfy down comforter all warm and stuff which the optimal conditions for sleeping are all present, he can’t. The universe has a vendetta against him, he doesn’t even know why.

At this moment particularly, he can’t stop thinking about Satsuki’s theory about Mr. Hoodie’s death. Homicide. By Fukuda Sogo. A hit...was it done by Kise? It’s totally possible– he was in the area and he knew about Mr. Hoodie. Failure to complete the mission– smuggling those suitcases of drugs– caused his death. His punishment was death by overdose with the very drugs he had tried to smuggle in. Aomine furrows his brow and rolls over to face the window.

_I’m a hitman contracted to kill you from Fukuda Sogo. I’ve failed to complete my task._

Kise’s voice pops into his mind, earnest and wavering with urgency. (Now that he thinks about it, it was very unlike Kise who always spoke dripping in charm.)

_I’ve failed._

Aomine grips his comforter. If Kise had failed...then what would happen to him?

_Cruel and unusual punishments by the gang. Buried alive. Beaten to death. Failures. Punishments._

Aomine’s eyes fly open, his heart racing. Does that mean that Kise is going to get punished? Did he, by not killing Aomine, resign to die in a Fukuda Sogo way? Aomine’s hands throb from gripping the comforter so tightly.

Has his deadline passed? How long had it passed? If so where is Kise now? Did he go to Fukuda Sogo’s headquarters? Is he de-

Aomine sits up in his bed, sweating although he forgot to turn on his room heater earlier in his single-minded mission to pass out as quickly as possible.

He can’t be. Kise smiles brightly in his mind. Warm and smooth, that’s how Kise is. If he managed to trick everyone about who he is, then he should be resourceful enough to survive. The sobbing Kise from that day pops into his mind. He would be able to survive...right?

Aomine leans forward cursing into his hands, “Damn it, that stupid backstabbing asshole.”

It’s a sad attempt to remind himself that Kise had tried to kill him. Kise works with a dangerous gang and he might die because...because...for some reason he couldn’t kill Aomine. And actually why couldn’t he? Aomine’s eyes widen as he realizes Kise never gave an explanation why he decided not to carry out his mission.

“Goddamn it!” Aomine snarls in frustration.

The Kise in his mind looks at him with the same wide sad eyes he had that morning. There are no answers there. And the more he thinks about it, the more he wants to know why– but he’ll _never_ know if that dumbass is _dead_.

Reaching out fumbling for the bedside lamp, he switches it on and stomps into the kitchen. Squinting at the sudden brightness of the lights, he fumbles to find his phone. When he does, he brings up Kise’s number and angrily types a set of staccato texts.

 

 

> _From: Aomine_
> 
> _To: Kise_
> 
> Hey.

 

 

 

> _From: Aomine_
> 
> _To: Kise_
> 
> Hey a

 

 

 

> _From: Aomine_
> 
> _To: Kise_
> 
> Asshole, answr my texts I have an impotant question to ask you dam it

He waits for a bit. When he texted him in the past, Kise used to always respond in around five to ten minutes. So he waits. Those are the ten longest minutes of his life and he finds himself pacing around his dining room and kitchen. After checking his fridge for the twentieth time, he checks his phone again. Eight minutes have passed. Fuck this, he doesn’t have the patience to wait any longer. Aomine agitatedly jabs the call button next to Kise’s name.

The phone takes a few seconds to connect to his number.

Then it keeps ringing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg I thought the prev chapter was hard to write, this one...so much rewriting. I was trying to make it less cheesy but it's still pretty cheesy (damn it). We are so close to the end!! In celebration for new knb season haha here's another update for you!


	8. Never Say Goodbye

Haizaki casually strolls into one of his many warehouse storage rooms at the Fukuda Sogo base. Workers in the room are busy moving about inspecting the boxes labeled with meaningless barcodes. They are in the midst of prepping their new shipment for Fukuda Sogo’s street team to disperse to the general public. Upon seeing him walk through the door,  the workers immediately tense up. Unperturbed, Haizaki stops a few feet from the door, lost in thought. Ishida may want him to relax and confirm that Seven has betrayed them all, but that’s because it’s Ishida, being all about that _reason_ and _willingness to forgive_ business. It’s not a matter of faith or trust–both of which Haizaki never gave Seven in the first place because he never liked the guy. However because Ishida serves his purpose as an advisor giving out advice Haizaki might like to follow, it is not he, but Haizaki, who has the choice on whether to take it or leave it. While he doesn’t really care if Ishida proceeds with his own plan or not, Haizaki has his own ideas. Right now, Haizaki’s blood is boiling from anticipation. Maybe this is what he has been waiting for ever since he met Seven years ago–he still yearns to have an excuse to mess up that pretty face real good.

“Mochizuki,” Haizaki calls out to the overseeing manager, “Come here for a second.”

For such an unassuming guy, Mochizuki makes up a part of Fukuda Sogo’s formidable hitman team. Like Ishida, Haizaki has no reason to question his loyalty because Mochizuki is too afraid of Haizaki to dare go against him. A hitman like Mochizuki is more to Haizaki’s taste: less free will and cunning, more obedient like a dog.

“Yes, sir?” Mochizuki trots over, waving at his team, signaling to continue without him.

“Keep this on the down low, but I want you to keep an eye out in Nagoya for Seven,” Haizaki mutters as they stand side to side against the concrete wall, “I have a feeling he’s going to be coming by soon. If you see him, bring him to me immediately, understand?”

Mochizuki watches the shuffling boxes, nodding, “I understand, sir.”

“I wouldn’t mind if he’s a bit scuffed up, but I want him alive,” Haizaki turns and purposefully walks into Mochizuki’s shoulder threateningly, “I want to be the one he sees before he breathes his last breath.”

Mochizuki doesn’t say anything, but returns back to work. After Haizaki leaves the room, the workers breathe a sigh of relief.

 

* * *

 

After the fifth cycle of rings, Kise picks up. Panic hits Aomine reminding him that he has no idea what the hell he is going to say to Kise; his mind has been fuzzy ever since he barreled into the kitchen earlier. All he knew was that he had to reach Kise, to confirm he wasn’t doing something dumb because he’s just an idiot. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since Kise left. That counts as a fight, right?  Even though they “broke up”, it felt like a real break up, though its not like they were truly dating, but still. So the first thing he should probably do is some awkward small talk to build up to the point of the conversation and...shit, he’s fucked.

“Aomine?” Kise sounds surprised but also a bit cautious, maybe. Rightfully so, though Aomine surmises, but geez, is it normal to just forget how to function when someone hears the voice of an ex... _friend_ …?

Perhaps it’s just out of habit, or the fact that he has become so accustomed to it, but Aomine’s brain autofills in _-ecchi_ as soon as Kise says his name. Even after Aomine told him in person it wasn’t acceptable anymore. But hearing his name without the usual added embellishment from Kise is just unsettling. It’s oddly naked. Like omelette rice with no ketchup. It’s unnatural and it’s like they are _strangers_. (They aren’t and Aomine hasn’t forgiven him per say, but it’s all really freakin’ unsettling-)

“Dumbass, why didn’t you pick up your phone!” Aomine spits out, interrupting his stream of thoughts, a surprise bought of anger bubbling to the surface due to the fact that he is caught off guard.

Kise doesn’t respond. But Aomine knows he’s still there, listening, so he continues, “I’ve been trying to reach you because– Because you left me hanging with all these freaking questions and no answers– And it pisses me off, you jackass!”

“Aomine,” Kise starts again hesitantly, and carefully. His tone is really starting to get on Aomine’s nerves, “You shouldn’t contact me anymore.”

“Shut the hell up,” Aomine snaps back with a little too much venom because his head is disoriented with the blood rushing to his ears and everything. The best thing he can do to cope with his senses going crazy is to get mad, “No one tells me what to do, least of all you.”

Kise falls silent again. Aomine almost, no scratch that, he feels really guilty for lashing out at him but also _why is he the one feeling guilty?_  He shouldn’t be feeling anything, because he was the one who was wronged. And here he is, coming loose at the seams on the instance of Kise’s freaking voice for gods sake! In retrospect, this call was a horrible idea, but it’s too late for regret. All Aomine can do is fan the flames of his anger to push himself through.

“Where are you,” he growls into the microphone.

“Don’t come and find me, Aomine,” Kise sounds almost desperate, his voice soft, “I have to go.”

“Where are you!” Aomine repeats, louder.

“Goodbye, Aomine,” Kise hangs up.

Frustrated, Aomine flings his phone at the wall. It dents the surface and drops into the hardwood floor, breaking open in pieces. Swearing, he walks up to the wall and examines the damage. There’s a sizeable hollow in the drywall. Fucking hell, he’s going to have to patch that shit up later. He bends down to reassemble his phone and checks to see if he didn’t break it for good. The screen starts up normally. Aomine breathes a sigh of relief.

Fucking Kise. He doesn’t have the right to tell him to not look for him. He doesn’t have the right to tell him not to talk to him. It’s like he freaking broke up with Aomine, but that doesn’t even fucking make sense as he was the one who tried to kill Aomine.

“What the fuck!” Aomine curses out loud at the ceiling as he slumps against the wall, his head thumping loudly. Which doesn’t help his growing migraine probably due to a combination of everything (exhaustion, stress, _that jerkwad Kise_ ).

First off, Kise needs to get his ass back here. So he can answer all the questions Aomine has. He owes Aomine this. And to say goodbye _like this_ – in which Aomine needs to reemphasize, Kise _does not have the right_ to say goodbye to _him_ – as if he doesn’t plan on seeing Aomine ever again is really not fucking okay. What does he mean by “don’t contact me” and “goodbye”? It’s like he’s walking out of Aomine’s life _as if he’s the only person who can decide that he can do that_ , add in the fact that he’s a double agent meaning he’s part of Fukuda Sogo, he would (at some point) be walking back into that shitfest right? The cherry on top of it all is that Fukuda Sogo disposes of members who cross them in gruesome ways, put two and two together, Kise is walking to his death, right???

“Dumbass,” Aomine yells receiving angry knocks on the wall from his neighbor for him to shut the fuck up because it is freaking late at night. He angrily knocks back.

What can he do now? It’s not like he has confirmation that Kise is on a suicide mission. But Aomine can’t sit still because he can’t be 100% sure Kise wouldn’t. He paces around his apartment, raking his hands through his hair, trying to think things through. He’s not so fond of thinking so hard since it requires a lot of work (Tetsu would say he’s not so great at it either but Tetsu can be a little shit sometimes), but at a time like this _when all he can do_ is think–his brain is driving him nuts.

Aomine finds himself pulling on jeans and grabbing his stuff, his body having decided what to do before his mind could catch up.

“That-” Aomine snarls as he pulls a shirt over his head, “stupid, freakin’ idiot. I’m gonna find him. And then, I’m gonna stop him, and then-”

Aomine almost falls over while shoving his left leg into his jeans. He lets out a string of colorful curse words.

“And then, I’m gonna make him tell me everything,” he says aloud to himself as he runs out of his apartment with a jacket and scarf in tow. Going in with a plan of attack will reduce amount of migraines this mission will undoubtedly bring.

 

* * *

 

Ishida dials Seven’s number. It rings until voicemail comes up. Ishida waits through the automated voicemail message, speaking casually, “It’s me. It’s getting heated over here and I’d say you are in the middle of it. Remember who your client is. Remember their request. I’d be careful if I were you.”

It’s cryptic, but he’ll get it. Seven is bright enough. Ishida sighs, scratching his head absentmindedly.

It would be just such a waste if Seven went AWOL.

“Such a waste,” Ishida mutters as he walks towards Haizaki’s office.

 

* * *

 

The next half an hour is a blur. Literally. Somehow Aomine finds himself on the the fastest bullet train to Nagoya. Staring out the window and cursing Kise to the depths of hell because he paid out of pocket for this express train out of...of anger because Kise is a huge dumbass and not only does he owe him answers now, Aomine is going to give him hell for the price of this ticket.

Somewhere after the time when he was muttering angrily under his breath which makes the train attendant walk away from him faster after he’s validated his ticket (because when people mutter to themselves in public, it tends to make them look crazy), Aomine realizes while drifting off to sleep that he’s angry because he’s worried about Kise.

_I hope that idiot is okay_ is the last thing that passes through his mind, before he wakes up forty-five minutes later in a start.

“Shit,” Aomine stumbles around his seat to look for a human being in which he can direct words to.

He spots a lady across the aisle and approaches her. She looks terrified and ready to bring out the pepper spray, wary of his strange brusque behavior only to relax a bit when she realizes he only wanted to know if he’s missed the Nagoya stop.

“N-no, it’s the next one though,” she says and Aomine thanks her before returning to his seat.

As soon as the train slows to a smooth stop at Nagoya station, Aomine hops off and takes a taxi to the airport. An hour later, after yelling at Security for a while to let him pass so he can find the pilots’ lounge, being threatened to be taken into custody, running off to find just one–he is just asking for one goddamn competent person in this stupid airport direct him to how he can find the crew from the last flight from Tokyo. Some frightened lady at a helpdesk finally pulls through and Aomine finds himself standing impatiently in a hotel lobby near the airport as the receptionist puts down the phone. He’s so exhausted his eyeballs might fall onto the floor in a mushy pile, but a jolt of adrenaline runs through him when the receptionist turns to him and says, “He’ll be right down, sir.”

“Thanks,” he grumbles as he walks back towards an area with couches and paces around impatiently.

Is Kise trying to live it up in this nice ass hotel as his last night alive? It would make sense, but why in Nagoya where Fukuda Sogo’s main base of operations is somewhere in this city and their members could be anywhere, what is the point of this-

He’s too lost in his thoughts to hear footsteps approach him as a familiar voice pulls him back to reality, “Aomine.”

Aomine turns around, sees that gorgeously handsome face, and doesn’t know whether to slug him or kiss the living daylights out of him. (Not in a literal sense, of course.)

 

* * *

 

Kise’s heart races as he tries to keep calm, facing a glowering Aomine. It’s been a crazy night starting off with Ishida’s ominous voicemail (is it just him or does it sound threatening?) and then resolving that if Fukuda Sogo (it’s probably Haizaki) has placed him under suspicion for some odd reason then he’ll need to figure out how to either take them down or get out. And as he’s trying to decide what to do, he gets a phone call in his room telling him there’s a visitor in the lobby waiting for him by the name of “Mr. Aomine Daiki.” Which was just his luck. Cursing, Kise had taken the time to walk down at a normal pace, to put off a front that Aomine coming all the way here didn’t affect him at all. If he pretends he doesn’t care, Aomine will walk away and at least, be safe for a little longer. Then maybe he’d finally get it through his head and go somewhere safe? Kise can’t even kid himself. He’s so annoyed. This bumbling idiot. Even after he told him to stay away. _Aominecc-_ Aomine is so stupid, senseless-

 _And he is right here._ Kise gasps inaudibly, heart beating even more rapidly, as he stands an arms length away from Aomine. He’s disheveled, hands shoved into his coat pocket, face scowling, but–Kise breathes shallowly, suddenly breathless like he took the stairs– he’s still insanely attractive with his mussed hair, and his clothes messy as if he quickly pulled them on and didn’t bother checking the mirror. (Which is _dingdingding_ correct.)

“You...idiot,” Aomine reaches out towards him.

Kise instinctually flinches and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s going to hit him. Well, it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it, but he hadn’t planned on Aomine following him to Nagoya to just to bash his face in. What he doesn’t expect is the sensation of strong hands gripping his upper arms tightly. When he dares to take a peek, Aomine’s face is closer than ever, his eyes glowing with such fervor. It’s the intensity of his stare that makes Kise’s breath hitch and his eyes start to sting. Aomine... _sucks_. He must know that his gaze makes Kise weak. Kise has been trying so hard for the past week to try to forget him and forget the guilt is rushing back–full force–like a tidal wave. Everything comes flooding in as if the weak mental barriers he built up is nothing, but rice paper and now he’s drowning in memories, pain, regret, guilt, and yearning. But that’s strange. Aomine’s face draws closer and Kise’s eyes widen. Is he going to-? Wait, no, why would he do that? He doesn’t have any more feelings for Kise because Kise betrayed him. He shouldn’t have any more feelings.

“What are you doing?” Kise breathes.

Aomine stops and blinks, probably realizing that he doesn’t know either. He violently shakes his head in attempt to wake himself up, and then he furrows his eyebrows, looking into Kise’s eyes pleadingly, “Don’t do it.”

“Do what?” Kise asks because now he’s really confused. (And dazed. It’s that stare.)

“Whatever you were planning on doing,” Aomine continues, “That thing.”

Thing? Kise really has no idea what he’s talking about. His forehead wrinkles in confusion, “What thing?”

“You know,” Aomine’s eyes flick exaggerating his words as if he wants to pass some kind of secret message to Kise, “That thing.”

Is there something he’s missing?

“That...thing?”

Aomine nods fervently, “Yes, don’t do it.”

“Huh?” Kise intones, more confused than ever.

“Oh my fucking god,” Aomine drops his arms and brings a hand to his face, “Stop playing dumb.”

Kise moves up close to Aomine, resting his hands on his chest unconsciously, “I don’t understand what you are talking about-”

“He means don’t go back to your partner waiting up in your room,” A little girl interrupts the two, sitting back on the biggest couch watching them. She kicks her short legs lazily as she stares at them with big brown eyes.

Kise just about jumps out of his skin. Aomine looks like he had a heart attack. Was she sitting there all this time?

“Don’t cheat on him, mister!” she says jumping up before answering her mother’s call far off in the hotel’s restaurant that’s connected to the lobby.

They watch her run off.

“Seems like someone’s been watching too many dramas,” Kise sheepishly laughs at Aomine, whose face is stuck somewhere in between confusion and embarrassment, and asks him if he’d like to go somewhere more private so they can talk.

 

* * *

 

Somethings off and Aomine’s sure it has to do with Kise. He looks different somehow even though he looks as immaculate as usual. Combed hair, a fashionable sweater jean casual wear outfit, cheeks dusted pink, those long lash–maybe some dark eye circles? Has he lost weight? Perhaps Aomine is seeing things. This seems like normal Kise, but something is off. Aomine can’t figure out what it is.

“You thought I was coming here on a suicide mission?” Kise repeats slowly, eyes full of incredulity as he settles on a chair across from Aomine in the empty lounge area of the hotel’s first floor.

“Aren’t you?” Aomine retorts a little too loudly, a little too accusatory.

“No?” Kise responds in a tone sounds like Aomine is the biggest idiot for assuming so. Aomine wants to smack him, so he does. Right on the head.

“Ow, what was that for!” Kise whines and pouts. Ah, now Kise just seems like regular Kise again. The atmosphere has returned to something familiar, which is really weird. Aomine’s anger steadily drains away, even though he wants, or needs to be mad right now or he’ll start saying or doing stupid things. Like what happened earlier, when he first saw Kise alive and well, all he wanted to do was hold him and-

“Stupid, you’re so stupid,” Aomine mutters.

“Is that why you came here?” Kise’s mouth opens and closes, as if he was going to add something more. But Aomine knows what he was going to say anyway.

_After me?_

Aomine’s face heats up as he covers it with his hands, “You are such an idiot.”

“Ah” is all Kise says and Aomine is now too embarrassed to look at him. He came here for other _more important_ reasons, obviously. Speaking of, if he has Kise sitting here in front of him right now, he should start asking. He sticks his hand out at Kise who stare at it wide-eyed and confused.

“I’m charging you for the train fare,” Aomine glares at him through the corners of his eyes.

“Eh?” Kise whines again, “Why?”

“No questions, you’re not allowed–I’m also taking you in,” Aomine shifts so he give Kise the hardest look he can muster. Which is a bad move on his part because his heart starts pounding again and other delusions start to cloud his mind when he stares into familiar pretty eyes framed with tousled blond locks.

Kise blinks, “Are you arresting me?”

“Yes,” Aomine says slowly, “For fraud-”

“Eh?” Kise intones again, louder as surprise settles in.

Aomine stubbornly continues,“Of both monetary and emotional means and then escaping and avoiding prosecution, criminal mischief-”

“Wait, Aomine,” Kise tries to interrupt again.

“And causing emotional distress to victim by going on a supposed suicide mission without a note or anything,” Aomine finishes, “You left me with so many questions and no answers, forced me to chase after you, and now I’m here ten thousand yen poorer not including one night’s rate at this hotel. So let’s start from the easiest thing and work down the list. Fork over money for my train fare.”

Kise blinks a few times, taking it all in. His cheeks are rosier than before and combined with the face he makes when he is thinking, it’s a deadly combo for Aomine’s resolve (and his heart). He clears his throat, “I’m going to arrest you so you will have to answer everything.”

Kise looks at him, blinking slowly, “You can’t arrest me because you don’t have any proof-”

“What do you mean I don’t have any-” Aomine starts.

“But I can get you proof...that is if you wanna take Fukuda Sogo down,” Kise says sitting up, “But I don’t want to go to jail, that would be a pain.”

Wait a minute. What is he saying. He’s onboard with Aomine, but with _conditions_...this is starting to feel really _familiar_. This is how Kise got him in the beginning, by approaching him and pretending to be something he’s not. Aomine resists an urge to smirk bitterly at the memory. What is he trying to do? He scans Kise’s face. It’s serious, so serious in fact Aomine wants to shy away from looking at it. Because Kise’s not smiling, with his mouth or his eyes. And then Aomine’s figures it out. Why Kise looks different today as compared to the past.

He’s not trying to charm him. _This must be_ , Aomine thinks, taking in a slow deep breath, _Kise without a mask._ Maybe? With or without a mask, it doesn’t excuse his track record. Kise’s fooled him once already, who’s to know if he’ll do it again. If he’s asking that they work together one last time, that’s ridiculous. It’s like asking the impossible. Can a person even dish out _negative_ trust? Isn’t that distrust? Placing faith in Kise is a dangerous game if Aomine hasn’t learned this and he’s completely hopeless. However, if Kise comes to him like this, like he’s done playing, does that change everything?

“What are you trying to say,” Aomine mumbles, his tone low and dangerous.

Kise stares at him, then suddenly breaks out into a chuckle, “I guess...I’m asking you to trust me again. That’s crazy of me to ask you. I mean...I don’t...I don’t really have that right, huh?”

“...You really don’t,” Aomine confirms slowly. That was a surprising burst of self-awareness.

Kise’s smile twitches a little at the corner as his eyes turn glassy, “I suppose not.”

It’s that look again. The look from the rooftop and the look from that morning that makes Aomine want to pull him close and-

“But,” Aomine continues slowly reasoning out Kise’s ridiculous request, “Why would you go so far lie about being part of Fukuda Sogo. If anything, I can believe you got close to me just to kill me.”

Kise winches at the phrasing of his words, but silently waits for Aomine to go on.

“So if you are offering to help me bring them down in attempt to reach some sort of plea bargain, it seems like I’m cashing out on my end,” Aomine muses out loud, mostly to himself at this point, “Shouldn’t you be talking about plea bargains with your lawyer present?”

Kise knows perfectly well that he’s just a simple TSA officer. His eyes confirm Aomine’s assumptions.

“I guess I have to trust you to pass it on,” Kise says softly.

The urge to smirk is back. The strange irony of the situation is too much.

“I’ll have to call Satsuki and let her know then. And she’ll send back up, so you can’t do anything backstabbing,” Aomine half-threatens, half-warns Kise.

Kise nods in compliance.

“Then..I guess in this case...if you were to run in and try to kill yourself, it would be under my watch, so I can stop you for real,” Aomine picks at the chair he’s sitting on, “Do you understand what will happen if I agree to this?”

Kise’s eyes don’t waver. He doesn’t attempt to turn on the charm either. He just sits and waits patiently for Aomine to finish.

“So what you stand to gain from this is…” Aomine muses.

Kise’s eyes flicker towards his.

They seem to glow like molten gold in the dim light, slightly red rimmed, shimmery and–it dawns on him that Kise isn’t just asking to work together again. He’s stripped off all the charm, cast away all the roles he’s playing to come to Aomine as plain Kise. It’s jarring because if this is actually the real Kise, he looks so defeated, less sparkly, but more _human_. Kise has always had a lot of guts, that was something Aomine always liked about him. Even now, he hasn’t changed in this aspect. And if he asking for what Aomine thinks he’s asking for, Aomine doesn’t know what to think. It’s absolutely insane. It’s so stupid of him to ask and it’s idiotic of Aomine to even consider it. He should be so furious, yelling at Kise, taking it out on him because he deserves it all, but-

Kise’s mouth fumbles on the words. Even he knows how absurd his request sounds, “Freedom and…”

Kise doesn’t need to say it. Aomine knows.

_Forgiveness._

“Ah,” Aomine says, unable to keep eye contact.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Because perhaps this thing called love makes a fool out of all players, willing or not. In the end, they are all idiots. Screwed up idiots who keeping falling into same trap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some horrid writers block and then I got sick, but I'm so over that now. In (belated) celebration of Boyfran punch in anime, here's a new chapter! I also want to thank everyone who's been supporting this fic along the way–I'm trying not to self combust from all the wonderful comments and support, I'm not worthy!
> 
> I went back and added a few things and then in the end, I might go through the entire thing to see what a mess I've made. But for now, a new chapter and thank you! (They are still so in love d'aww so cheese.)


	9. It's My Life

Kise hops off the train in the suburbs, nearest to the Fukuda Sogo factory yard. It’s freezing, so cold that his nose stings and each exhale makes little clouds of fog. He tugs his jacket around himself tighter and anxiously pats off invisible fluff off his jogger sweats, his duffel swinging down with him. Today is the day where it all ends, and Kise would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous.

Kiyoshi had teased him about it as Kise left their shared hotel room, “Going for a jog? Geez, couldn’t you wait a little until we go back to Tokyo where it’s warmer?”

Kise had beamed at him and said, “Of course, you know me. I just have to go immediately.”

Kiyoshi laughed and said, “Ok, enjoy your stay in Nagoya then. See you next shift.”

As Kise walks toward their designated meeting spot, a street corner close to the edge of the suburbs, Kise thinks about last night. How out of the blue he offered to work with Aomine again, words fallling out of his mouth before his brain could process them. Then shockingly, Aomine actually _agreeing_ to it. How they talked about everything: from how Fukuda Sogo runs, where it is located, and who runs it all. Kise told Aomine his name. _Haizaki Shougo_ , Aomine had repeated, trying to memorize it. They formulated a plan together (it was more like a set of guidelines having set their fate in Momoii’s capable hands and a hell a lot of luck), and then separated to retire in their separate bedrooms.

There was a moment before they left the lounge area, where Aomine hesitated like he had additional things to say. But in the end he didn’t, opting to go first, leaving Kise standing there wishing Aomine had actually tried to say whatever it is that he originally intended. Kise was gripped by immense childish desire then. He wanted to chase after him, grab hold of him, and know he’s real, solid, and here. He wanted to ask him if there was anyway they could be be together again, though realistically he knew they couldn’t. Knowing that this wish of his, the first one to appear of his own volition in a long time, was horribly selfish and idiotic, and yet Kise still couldn’t bear to let it go. The energizing feeling of wanting something just _because_ is like balancing on a tightrope strung between skyscrapers. Because if Aomine could actually agree to working together again, it’s like a step back to simpler times when they could stand comfortably besides each other.

Aomine stands rigidly at the street corner, face burrowed into his scarf, shuffling around in attempt to stay warm.

“Aominec- _Aomine_ ,” Kise corrects himself as he jogs up to him. Aomine, thankfully, shows no sign of having heard the slip.

“Late as usual,” Aomine grumbles, looking at him conspicuously. He’s wearing the same clothes as he did yesterday. (A testament to him rushing to Nagoya.)

“Sorry,” Kise squeezes the strap of the duffel he’s carrying, “I had to make some preparations.”

He unzips his duffel and holds it towards Aomine. It is full of handguns and ammunition. Aomine takes a look and looks at Kise incredulously, “How did you even get a hold of these?”

“I’m a hitman, Aomine,” Kise deadpans, unable to keep out the sarcasm, “I have my sources.”

“...I’m adding illegal weapons possession to your rap sheet,” Aomine gives him a stink eye for his tone before grabbing a holster with a semi auto and some extra rounds.

“Says the guy who’s taking them anyways,” Kise pouts, attaching a gun to the holster he’s already wearing underneath his jacket.

They start off walking towards their destination (with Kise jogging slowly to keep up appearances). The factory park where Haizaki bases his operations is based not far from the edge these suburbs. It’s beautiful out here in the Japanese countryside.The streets are empty and peaceful, save for an occasional elderly person hobbling along. Gullies are iced over, and sparkling frosted grass wave gently by some nonexistent wind. Aomine hasn’t said a word since they met up and it’s very awkward because Kise also doesn’t know what to say. All the easy stuff has been said and the harder stuff like whatever Aomine needed to talk to him about well...it’s not like he can just dive into those out of nowhere, right? At least the scenery is gorgeous, even if silence is awkward. After a while, Aomine blows out a puff of air watching the fog dissipate, “So...uh I called Satsuki yesterday and she said she’d have reinforcements down as soon as possible.”

Kise hums in response. Aomine continues, “She probably should be on her way by now...this is crazy. This plan is crazy.

“Well yes,” Kise starts, trailing off, “But it’s all we got...”

Oh. Speaking of things to talk about, there was one more topic they forgot to discuss yesterday. The fence surrounding the perimeter of the factory park is pretty high up and made out of cement brick. Kise looks up at Aomine and then brings a hand to his chin in thought.

Aomine squints at him, “What?”

“I think you should be able to make it,” Kise mentally estimates that the top of the fence is just maybe around ten to fifteen centimeters taller than Aomine.

“Huh?” Aomine’s brows knit in confusion.

“Nothing, nothing,” Kise waves him off. Aomine looks annoyed at the lack of explanation to Kise’s random behavior, so Kise distracts him with another question, “You brought your badge, right?”

“Well yea but it’s just a TSA badge anyone with eyeballs can tell it’s not-”

Kise laughs, shaking from the cold and nerves, “Haven’t you seen those cop movies? Just fake it.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re the master at faking it,” Aomine retorts with a little too much spite.

Ouch, that kinda stings. Kise doesn’t know what to say. Aomine immediately realizes his mistake, “I didn’t mean that in...that kind of...you know.”

“It’s fine. You’re right after all,” Kise flashes him a quick smile. They approach another street corner that turns onto another row of houses. The factory complex looms in the distance. Kise turns toward Aomine as he slows down to a stop. It’s go time.

“I guess,” he looks at Aomine sheepishly after stretching a little in preparation, “I’m going to head off.”

“Kise,” Aomine says too quickly, “Don’t die.”

Kise’s face heats up. Aomine has always says things like this out of the blue. Unintentional little things that never cease to make Kise’s heart flutter. It’s not like he’d do otherwise, but it’s an embarrassingly good feeling to know someone’s concerned about him. Not that he minds when it’s Aomine worrying about him.

“I won’t you’ll see,” he says softly as he turns and jogs down the road. He can feel Aomine’s eyes on him.

Suddenly reminded of the bitter cold, the hundred fifty meter distance to the factory’s loading dock near the backside of the complex never seemed longer. This is always his entrance of choice when he is called to headquarters because of a lack of people who work in this area (which makes it perfect for their current mission). Perhaps though it was because of the unpleasant aura and the animosity Haizaki has for him that he has never been fond of coming to headquarters. Jogging up to the security gate, he gives the guard a nod in greeting, holding up his hand flashing the red Fukuda Sogo insignia inked into his skin. The guard lets him through, his face displaying no signs of recognition. Kise doesn’t continue onward as the guard expects him to, opting instead to lean on the window casually.

“Hey,” Kise breathes coyly putting the charm on a hundred percent, “Do you have any news about the new shipment?”

Aomine should be here at any moment now. He started after Kise five minutes later.

“W-what?” The security guard, used to only checking ids for passersby, seems taken aback by Kise’s sudden friendliness, “I’m not sure. Do you want me to call someone to ask?”

Kise gives him his brightest smile, “Please.”

The security guard blinks, dazed by his brilliance, and turns around to dial someone on his phone. Kise watches him as he notices out of the corner of his eye, Aomine climb over the fence and hide behind a truck.

“Ah Mochizuki-san, well, I have…” The security guard turns to look at him questioningly.

“Seven,” Kise responds, voice dripping saccharine.

_“Why would you let them know you are back?” Aomine hissed at him, “It’s an open invitation for them to come out and kill you!”_

_“But there’s no other way to get in, we have to compromise something,” Kise replied adamantly, “I don’t mind it if I act as a distraction and you can just find what you need.”_

_“You freakin’-,” Aomine balls up his hands into fists, “Distraction? Are you leaving me on my own? I’ve never even been inside this place and you’re-”_

_“No, no,” Kise shaked his head, “I’ll come with you, we’ll just have a small window to find what we need.”_

_“Great so now we have a time limit while we walk into enemy territory with our hands up,” Aomine crossed his arms._

_“I have a hunch where they would be hiding the goods, Aomine,” Kise kept eye contact, “It wouldn’t take long. We find the drugs, you call Momoiichi, we are out. It’s easy.”_

_“Easy my ass,” Aomine muttered, looking away._

The security guard repeats what he said and asks about the shipment. He repeats what he heard to Kise who nods and thanks him, walking off in the direction of the factory. Kise purposefully takes the longer route around the perimeter of the courtyard so Aomine can catch up while staying hidden. They reunite when he walks behind some storage shelves stacked high past the truck loading zone entrance.

“I hate how you can just walk in and I have to pull an Olympics style marathon to do the same,” is the first thing Aomine says to him, panting a little, pulling out his semi-auto peering around.

“Was it too challenging for you?” Kise teases him, arching a brow in amusement, while pulling out his own gun as well.

Aomine predictably bristles, “No! It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

Kise rolls his eyes, “Come on, let’s go find you your proof. Where’s Momoiichi?”

“She texted me a while ago saying she is getting close to Nagoya. We still have some time.”

“Good,” Kise starts moving. They sneak through the factory, ducking behind unused machinery. Kise knows that Haizaki keeps this factory building up for appearances only. No one actually works in this building because it’s meant for storage. While he didn’t know where exactly Haizaki hid his goods, he had a big suspicion this building is the place to start. Behind a few more aisles of storage shelving, they find a door. Kise jiggles the handle.

“It’s locked,” he sighs, “If I had brought my lock p-”

Aomine ignores him, picks up an extra metal bar from a pile left over from assembling the warehouse style shelving and with one swing, smashes the handle off the door.

“Go,” he says.

Aomine is a big dunderhead. He’s so reckless! What if someone heard that? Kise bites back all scathing comments before dashing in. They don’t have time to argue. Fukuda Sogo now knows he’s onsite and so the faster they can find the evidence, the faster they can get out. Maybe Aomine knows that and that’s why he’s being careless, but they can’t afford any mistakes. They run into a dimly lit hall, tiled and painted white with the pipes exposed in the ceiling. Walking quickly, they peek in the little glass window for each door they pass.

“Do you see anything?” Aomine asks him.

“Just rows of boxes?” Kise answers with uncertainty because the only source of light is from the half-lit lights in the hall, “Maybe we should just pick a room to inspect.”

He places his hand on the next door handle and starts to open it.

“Seven, what are you doing?” Ishida asks calmly.

Shit, it’s too soon. He hadn’t realized how fast Ishida would come, though it doesn’t surprise him that he’d know all the secret shortcuts of this place. His stomach dropping, Kise turns and finds Ishida with his arms crossed standing down the end of the hall. He breaks out in a cold sweat as his brain starts spinning at a thousand kilometers trying to figure out how to get out.

Aomine breaks him out of his reverie by shaking his shoulder roughly, “Kise, run-”

“Run and I’ll shoot,” Ishida says, pulling out a gun.

Aomine ignores him, grabbing Kise by the shoulders and pushing him towards the bend behind them. Kise finally comes to his senses as he drags his feet along with Aomine. A bullet flies by Kise’s ear and they stop in their tracks. The corner is still ten meters away, but Ishida has gotten closer. Ishida has always been proficient in shooting and so it must be that he missed on purpose, because with the distance between them, there’s no way even a novice would miss. The chances of them finding cover in this narrow hallway are little to none.

“Shit,” Aomine curses underneath his breath, pulling out his badge and shifting to point his gun at Ishida, “Police! Freeze. Don’t come any closer, this is a police investigation-”

Ishida doesn’t respond and continues walking, stopping a few feet in front of them, “I know you are a TSA officer, you have no jurisdiction here. Put down your weapon, Aomine-san.”

Aomine blinks dumbly at him before whipping his head around to Kise, “How do you-? Kise, you know him?”

“I-,” Kise starts.

“Seven, I hope you aren’t doing what I think you are doing,” Ishida says quietly.

“Why is he calling you Seven?” Aomine interrupts.

“Uhm,” Kise tries again. His brain is malfunctioning. Aomine needs to be safe, but they are stuck and Ishida is not pleased. How can they get out? Every possible action they could do leave them open, like paper targets at a shooting range.

“I’d assume he’d have told you, Aomine-san,” Ishida looks at him coldly, “Since you are here with him now. Seven is his codename. He works for us as a hitman.”

“Asshole, I wasn’t freakin’ talking to you!” Aomine snaps at him.

Ishida ignores him, eyes flickering to Kise, “I’ll pretend that what I think is going on here isn’t happening. I’m giving you one more chance. Are you going to finish your job?”

Kise swallows. The gun in his hand is solid and heavy, made of metal and full of bullets. He can feel Aomine’s piercing gaze on him, watching Kise make his next move. Aomine may still hold doubts about him. Kise doesn’t blame him. His fingers tighten around the handle of his gun.

“I won’t,” he says with quiet conviction, looking Ishida square in the eye. Ishida’s jaw tightens. Aomine’s eyes are still on him.

“I’m sorry, Ishida,” he apologies quietly.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Ishida says as he raises his gun, aiming at Kise’s head.

Aomine reflexes are lightning quick as he raises his arms, steadying his aim, “If you don’t drop that weapon, I will shoot! Kise, you idiot, what’s wrong with you? Get your shit together!”

Having a shootout with Ishida in this hallway is one way to go. After all they outnumber him, two to one. The issue is that there’s a high chance of both of him getting hurt and Aomine dying because Ishida is so closeby. So there must be another solution. Ishida is understanding. He always has been. Maybe if Kise tried to persuade him to somehow let them go, even though Kise knows that there’s not a shot in hell of it happening, but it’s the only thing he has left to try. Kise puts a hand on Aomine’s shoulder and squeezes it before stepping in between them with Aomine protesting, “Ishida, please, I know you are a reasonable guy.”

“I told Haizaki you were on top of this,” Ishida replies bitterly, “I defended you and asked for him to give you a chance whatever that means to him. I held you up and you pushed me into hot water. You’ve embarrassed me, Kise.”

Kise bites his lip. The realization of betraying someone who had his back hurts no matter who it is. He accepted the job in the beginning thinking it’d progress like normal, never expecting to burn so many bridges. He takes a hesitant step towards Ishida, “Ishida, I’m so sorry about that. There’s no excuse, but I engaged with the assignment and I fell in too deep. That’s it. Let us go. If you do, I promise not to tell anyone what happened here, if you let us live in peace.”

Ishida walks up to Kise, his gun now pointing at him at point blank range, “Is this reasonable to ask of me when you treat my trust like it’s garbage? You’re the absolute worst. I should kill you right now-”

Aomine shouts at him to move, “Kise, c’mon!”

The seconds ticking down, there’s nothing else they can do. Kise looks at Ishida, eyes begging him, “Ishida...please-”

The door that they came in from bursts open. Haizaki walks in followed by Mochizuki. It’s over. They’ve failed. Kise can’t breathe and the only thing tethering him to reality is the sensation of Aomine’s back pressed against his. Like a countdown to their death, Kise closes his eyes and waits for the footsteps come to a stop.

Any opportunities of escape they had are now gone.

 

* * *

 

Shit, how did it even end up like this? Things were going alright until it all fell into the crapper. It’s like Fukuda Sogo was expecting this: for Kise to come back in defeat and for him to bring along Aomine to snoop. In the back of his mind, a tiny voice points the blame at Kise for not foreseeing this, but Aomine shakes it away as trying to focus. It’s not the time for the blame game. Something else that’s bothering him is the sense of deja vu with guy with the braids. Is it because he looks familiar? It’s as if he knows this guy...Aomine’s eyes widen. Is it the same guy he saw at the hangar a few months ago beating the crap out of some dude? It was dark, but the braids look familiar if not the same. Swearing, he points his gun back and forth unsure of who, Ishida, Braids, or Baldie, to be aiming at. 

“Well, well, well what have we here? Look at Ishida taking care of business,” Braids taunts, laughing obnoxiously flipping a semi auto around his index finger.

“Sir, I’ve captured them and...you are right. He’s defected. I am going to end his life right now,” the guy wearing a suit, what was his name, Ishida says evenly. Freaking hell. Kise’s going to die. Aomine feels Kise shift behind him. Freaking Kise. Why did he just walk up to Ishida’s gun? He basically presented himself as an open target for Ishida! He’s so freaking stupid, Aomine wants to turn around and shake him right now if not for the current situation. Aomine will not let him die in front of him if he can help it.

Braids laughs loudly again, “Ishida, I’m glad you see the light! And the guy I ordered him to kill is right here. It’s like a two for one! I love it! Mochizuki?”

Who is this guy? He’s so fucking obnoxious. Why does he act like he owns the damn place? Aomine hates everything about him, from his clothes, to his face, to the way he stands like he’s the fricken king of the universe. Then these other two guys seem strangely on edge around this douchebag. Why is no one is standing up and telling him to shut his annoying ass up? Is it possible this guy is the head honcho...Haizaki?

On command, Baldie or Mochizuki cocks his gun, pointed at Aomine. Aomine grits his teeth and tightens the grip on his own gun.

“You’re the guy from the hangar–Are you...Haizaki?” Aomine asks, as he shifts his aim to Mochizuki.

“What’s it to ya, officer? If Seven had done his job right, you wouldn’t even be alive right now. But yea, I’m am. I’d suggest you drop your weapon,” Haizaki smiles dangerously, twirling his gun a full circle before catching it and pointing it at Aomine. He makes a pop sound with his lips before walking by.

Aomine’s eye twitches in annoyance. Being around this guy is agitating. But there’s no way out, they are cornered and outnumbered. Aomine swears underneath his breath. He shifts around, feeling Kise’s shoulder blades against his, his hair tickling his neck

“Drop it,” Mochizuki repeats.

Aomine raises his hands and slowly lowers his gun to the ground. Mochizuki nods his head at him, signaling Aomine to kick the gun out of his reach. Aomine scowls, but pushes the gun towards the wall, holding his hands up. How could they fuck up so bad. What happened. This is a shitty time to figure out that they both suck at strategy, he should have asked Satsuki for her help. Speaking of, Satsuki still hasn’t contacted them yet. Where is she?

Haizaki breaks out into a laugh as he purposefully walks into Aomine’s shoulder, bumping him roughly. It’s so obvious, he doesn’t see Aomine as a potential threat, his focus is all on Kise. It annoys the hell out of him, but Aomine could work this to his advantage. Fucking prick. Aomine wants to send his ass to prison as soon as possible and maybe throw a few punches along the way. But he can’t with the gun pointed at him and his current lack of his own gun. Aomine settles for giving dirty looks, but Haizaki has walked passed him already. Fuck this guy!!! 

Mochizuki doesn’t move, awaiting command, and Aomine can only shift to the side little by little to watch Kise from the corner of his eye.

“Stop moving,” Mochizuki orders. Aomine stops.

“Why you shouldn’t have,” Haizaki reaches out and takes the gun out of Kise’s hand, playing with it.

Kise stands still and doesn’t say anything.

Ishida speaks, “Sir, if you would please-”

“Shut up, Ishida,” Haizaki’s face temporarily loses all signs of amusement. Aomine feels a chill settle down on all of them before Haizaki brings back his cheshire cat smile. He takes the gun that he stole from Kise, and traces Kise’s jaw with it. Kise’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move. First he treats Aomine like he’s dirt and now he’s threatening Kise? Aomine wants to beat the crap out of this guy before he sends him to prison. Maybe after Satsuki rains hell on this place, he can ask her for some time alone with this piece of work.

“Leave him to me,” He says to Ishida.

“But sir-,” Ishida starts to protest.

Haizaki reels around and smashes Ishida in the head with the butt of his gun. Ishida falls back staggering as his forehead starts to bleed.

“I said, Leave him to me,” Haizaki repeats, enunciating slowly.

Ishida says nothing, leaning back against the wall, holding his head. Aomine is stunned. This guy...he just attacked one of his own men, without any regard. Kise’s arms droop a little as he presses closer towards Aomine, subconsciously. They need to get out of here. Aomine looks around surveying their surroundings. Mochizuki’s attention seems to be focused on Haizaki who is turned toward Ishida at this moment. He’s distracted. They can use this. It’s a miracle opportunity.

Aomine rapidly grabs Kise’s arm and makes a run for it. Mochizuki taken off guard fires his gun accidentally in Haizaki’s direction, earning him a ruthless bout of verbal abuse. Gunshots go off around them as Aomine tugs Kise around the corner and into a stairwell.

“What _was_ that back there?” Aomine hisses at him as he takes stairs two at a time. He has let go of Kise’s arm, giving him ample space to keep pace with him.

“What?” Kise pants as he follows Aomine through a door and down a corridor.

“Walking up to his gun and basically asking him to kill you. You promised you idiot!” Aomine reaches behind to smack Kise’s arm and Kise whines quietly in response, “Now I know your promises mean shit. You know, that they’d never let me live if you die, stupid!”

“I...I thought maybe I could buy you some time and you can just run. They are after my head,” Kise mumbles, rubbing his sore bicep.

Aomine mutters long strings of obscenities as he checks each door they pass, finally finding one that is unlocked. He opens it does a quick look around and pulls Kise inside, shutting the door quietly behind them. It’s largely abandoned, filled with random used furniture covered with a layer of dust. Aomine’s nose itches, but he’s able to suppress the urge to sneeze as they move to duck behind some desks. As soon as they are settled, he swings around and pins Kise against some rusty office desk drawers.

“You selfish asshole, don’t think for a second that you are alone in this,” Aomine’s eyes are flaring as he whispers sharply at him, “I’m here with you this time, like all the other times except now I know more things, so don’t freaking think that you are the only responsible for protecting both our lives.”

Kise blinks slowly, uncomprehending. Augh, he’s so dumb. Aomine is furious that he could be so idiotic. Aomine will admit that while he has his own moments, but Kise is being selfish as hell right now. It’s not _just_ about him anymore.

“If you do that again, I smack you so hard you’ll think twice about making such dumb decisions again. I swear to you, Kise. Unlike you, my promises mean something,” Aomine leans close for emphasis, his face is centimeters from Kise’s. He finishes with another glare, swearing before letting go. Kise’s eyes are wide, but he says nothing, breathing irregularly as he regains composure.

They sit and wait in silence as they listen for Haizaki and Mochizuki. Footsteps run by the door and Aomine holds his breath as they continue down the corridor. Where is Satsuki? What is taking her so long? Aomine pulls out his phone from his pocket to check for any missed messages. Kise looks at him questioningly. There’s one new text. Reading it he looks at Kise, “Satsuki is close. She’s waiting for me to respond. But I don’t have any signal.”

Kise glances at the phone in his hand, “Did you have any bars earlier?”

Aomine scrunches his forehead as he tries to remember. He check his phone once they got in the building, and he think he had signal back then, “Yea maybe at the loading dock.”

Kise sits back, pensive, “Then we just need to go outside? Or get as close as we can?”

“Yea.”

“Then we should get moving,” Kise whispers.

Aomine grunts in response. However neither of them make an effort to move for some reason. This moment it feels weird, even though they are on the run from Haizaki it’s an odd break like an eye of a storm. Something has been bothering him for while and now when finally they are completely alone, Aomine takes the opportunity to ask, “Did you mean it back there?”

Kise looks at him, clearing his throat, “Um, what?”

“About getting in too deep...with me,” Aomine whispers.

“Yea,” Kise trails off.

He looks like he has something more to say, so Aomine waits for him.

“I know I hurt you,” Kise starts quietly, “I didn’t intend to hurt you. I mean I was planning on killing you but I didn’t plan on getting involved but once I did, I kind of got...swept away. But nothing was a lie, besides who I really am. I really did….”

Kise sneaks a peek at him. His face is forlorn, and Aomine wonders how someone could look so beautiful while also looking so guilty.

Kise bites his lip and bows as low as he can while hunched over in their hiding spot, “I...really do like you a lot. Everything I did with you I meant it, so I’m so sorry for everything. I’m so, so sorry.”

His voice cracks as he looks up. His eyes are glassy. Kise tries to look away but Aomine catches his chin and turns his head, forcing him to keep eye contact. There it is. He now has Kise’s apology. Which in its own right was very satisfying, but that was not enough. Aomine thought he had so many questions to ask after finally meeting back up with Kise, but it turns out that they could all be simplified into one question.  

“So...why couldn’t you finish your job?” Aomine asks looking him in the eye. The sound of blood rushing roars in his ears.Kise blinks several times trying to clear the tears away. A small one slips over the edge and slides down his cheek.

“Isn’t it obvious,” he sniffs and coughs embarrassedly, “I fell for you. How can I kill someone I love?”

Ah. That’s it.

Aomine stares at him, swallowing. There it is. The answer he wanted to hear and he’s been wanting to hear since the day on the rooftop and maybe even earlier. (Not the killing part.) Kise bites his lip and turns away, using his palm to wipe away the stray tear. Aomine feels mildly annoyed, angry and a mixed muddle of many different emotions. But the one thing that’s abundantly clear is that there is some weight lifted off his shoulders.

Aomine clears his throat and leans back, “I can’t believe you waited until now to tell me. You idiot.”

Kise sniffs again chuckling, “Well sorry. It’s not like I could tell you earlier. I was sent to kill you after all. I can’t just pretend to work with you and then suddenly be like, ‘Hey I like you a lot, but I have to kill you sorry.’”

Aomine smiles, “Yea…”

They sit in silence. It’s awkward again, but for some reason it’s better than before. Kise clears his throat once more, “We should go.”

“Yea,” Aomine awkwardly agrees with him. They quietly walk up to the door and peek out of the hallway. It seems clear, so they walk out and go off in the opposite direction they came from, hoping it would take them to where they needed to be. The end of the hall takes them to a large window that over looks a large storage area, filled with wooden crates. As they approach the window, far down the end of the intersecting corridor a familiar bald head appears.

“Shit,” Aomine curses, grabbing Kise, “Run!”

“Sir, they are over here!”

Mochizuki starts firing at them. They speed down the hall into another stairwell and start running up.

“This building is the tallest building in the complex,” Kise pants as they keep running, hearing Mochizuki enter the stairwell beneath them “Maybe if we reach the roof, Momoiichi can see us?”

“It’s not like we have a choice,” Aomine responds as they arrive on the final landing. To no one’s surprise, the door is locked. Aomine kicks the door, but it doesn’t budge. Mochizuki’s footsteps are getting closer. Kise tries breaking the glass with his gun and his fist. It doesn’t work.

“Fuck this,” Aomine, fed up, shoots a couple of rounds at the door lock. The door finally swings open. The roof is flat and made of concrete with chainlink fencing, they run out and try to find cover behind the massive roof turbines.

“C’mon! Get signal, you stupid piece of shit,” Aomine shakes his cell roughly, holding it up to the sky as high as he can while staying hidden. The vents around them hum loudly.

Finally the little bars appear on the display and Aomine rapidly texts Satsuki that he’s here on the roof of the tallest building and she should come in ASAP. He presses send, “Done.”

He looks over at Kise and finds him rummaging around the straps and holsters hidden underneath his outfit. Aomine gives him a questioning look as Haizaki and Mochizuki walk out onto the roof.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Haizaki sing songs, eyes scanning the roof.

Luckily for Kise and Aomine, there are a bunch of turbines and vents on this large roof. Unfortunately they are organized in two groups and as Kise is distracted and going through his weapon supply cursing, Haizaki takes a while guess and fires at one group of machines. Lucky guess, unfortunately for Aomine and Kise. The bullet ricochets close to Aomine as he ducks forward to dodge it, he falls onto Kise, who stumbles backward exposing himself.

“Aha, there you are,” Haizaki’s leer widens as he raises the gun in his hand and aims at Kise who’s scrambling to get back behind the machines. Aomine sees him cocking the gun preparing to fire. Kise’s still scrambling. Haizaki’s about the pull the trigger.

Heartbeats.

Kise’s going to die. There’s no way Haizaki can miss. Kise’s still got a little way to go before he can get back to cover.

Haizaki’s finger pulls the trigger. Aomine lunges at Kise, wrapping his arms around him, dragging him to the ground where it’s safer out of range.

“Kise, Watch out!”

The sound of the gun echoes even with the loud whirring of fans in vents. Aomine’s cheek presses against Kise’s as they fall downwards. It’s so soft and warm and he hadn’t realized how much he missed how Kise’s face feels against his. Leaning his head back, he notices Kise’s mouth is moving but he can’t hear anything. What is he trying to say? Ugh. His shoulder. It’s so hot. It burns like a fire spreading across his back.

Kise’s long fingers wrap around the lapels of his jacket, shaking him, as numbness takes over his body. The numbness is probably because today is as cold as balls. But that’s strange. His back is wet. Aomine wonders why there are puddles of water on this rooftop when it is cold enough for water to freeze.

There’s something to cherish in this moment. How about he focuses on that. It’s the first time in a while that he has held Kise in his arms. Or is it vice versa. His body feels so solid, except that cold hand of his on Aomine’s cheek. His fingers are icy, because the idiot didn’t bother to wear gloves or something. Aomine winces a little.

_How...nice_ , he thinks sluggishly.

Kise’s mouth is still moving. But he can’t hear as all he wants to do at this moment is bury his face into Kise’s neck and sleep.

So he tries as making it half way as his vision skews black and he lets himself crumple against Kise’s body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for late update I had to rewrite this so many times because I had so much trouble. One more chapter!!! I'm excited :DD


	10. Living on a Prayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the crew thank you for choosing us and we wish you a safe journey.”

Oh god, there’s so much blood. It’s an indescribable color, flashing between red and black, but maybe that’s because Kise’s vision keeps wavering as he tries to get a grasp on the situation. It’s everywhere, on the concrete, his hands, soaking his shirt, making everything cold and sticky.

“Aominecchi,” Kise cries out brokenly, desperate. Aomine doesn’t move in his arms. He sniffles loudly as tears continue to stream down his face. Kise can only focus on the weight of Aomine’s body, how warm it is,  wondering how long would it stay warm if Aomine keeps losing blood like this and...oh god.

“Please, wake up...wake up,” he begs repeatedly, cupping Aomine’s face, as Haizaki’s raucous laughter gradually rings louder.

“That takes care of half of the pest problem. Now is when the fun starts,” Haizaki takes a few steps closer to them, his leather dress shoes crunching invisible gravel on the cement rooftop,

Kise ignores him and maneuvers Aomine’s body over his lap so he can examine the wound.

Haizaki’s bullet didn’t hit him in the head or the neck region. Thank god. There’s a possibility that it might not be fatal. His vision shakes as he tries to take deep breaths to calm himself down. The dark fabric of Aomine’s jacket is visibly stained darker in a slowly growing splotch that consumes most of his upper back. He swallows and shakes his head to refocus himself as he searches for the entry wound. The little tear in the fabric is difficult to find but he sees it finally, the frayed threads poking out dark and stiff with frozen blood. Kise lets out a strangled sob. There’s just so much blood. Is it his imagination or is Aomine getting colder. _Please Momoiichi, please come soon_. He wraps his arms tighter around Aomine, as if he can seal in the residual warmth Aomine still has to keep him alive. He buries his nose is Aomine’s shoulder only barely getting whiff of Aomine (with a hint of the metallic smell of blood) before he’s roughly pulled up by his hair. Aomine drops to the ground as Kise cries out in pain.

“Listen to me when I am talking to you, you piece of shit,” Haizaki hisses in his face, spit spraying.

Kise gapes at Aomine on the ground. His heartbeat. If he can just break out of Haizaki’s hold and check his heartbeat then...he’d know for sure. Why didn’t he think of this before? Why-

Kise lets out another yelp as Haizaki violently shakes his head as if it is a dusty rag. His scalp screams bloody murder, little hair follicles fighting to stay rooted in his scalp.

“Look at me!” Haizaki shrieks at him, shaking him violently, “Look at me! Look! At! Me!!”

No, he won’t give him any satisfaction. Kise has stopped making any sounds whatsoever, resorting to wincing and gritting his teeth so that he can make it through. Enough of this, he has to deal with an immediate problem at hand. He gives Aomine one last look before flicking his eyes back at Haizaki. Focusing all his anger and animosity into his eyes, he give Haizaki his most deadly glare. He will not back down. Haizaki will pay for this.

Haizaki stares back at him, face unreadable, breath forming clouds bridging the gap between them. Kise tightens his fists and slowly reaches behind to reach the flare gun he has stashed in a hidden belt underneath his shirt. His fingers tickle upon meeting fabric; Haizaki’s focus is still on him. Just a little further, Kise keeps up his glare without blinking. He’s hypersensitive of all of the sensations around him at this moment: his own heartbeats loudly reverberating in his eardrums, each expansion and contraction of his lungs in his chest, how the air is so dry his throat is parched his lips are cracking, and of course his scalp is still throbbing with pain but it’s now dulled by the endorphins that have started kicking in. Haizaki’s mouth suddenly twists into a smirk. He grabs Kise by his shirt with his free hand and throws Kise over his shoulder.

“Augh!” Kise gasps in shock and pain as his back hits the hard concrete. He sees stars, his ears are ringing from the shock of landing. But he recovers quickly enough to realize that the he’s landed farther away from the roof turbines. Which means he’s farther away from Aomine. Who might be dying. Shaking the ringing away, Kise scrambles to regain balance while he tries to get up. Mochizuki gives him a verbal grunt in warning as he points his gun at him, on his way over.

“Don’t move,” Mochizuki cocks his gun.

“Stand back, Mochizuki, he’s mine,” Haizaki howls maniacally as he sprints over to give Kise a foot to the gut.

Kise lets out a choking gasp, as he hits the ground again, rolling. Actually Haizaki’s kick, while it hurt like the devil, wasn’t powerful enough to make him roll as much as he did, but over exaggerating the power of Haizaki’s kick masked his attempts to reach that flare gun. His fingertips finally find purchase as Haizaki flies towards him to kick him again. Scooting out of the way in time, he pulls out the gun and points it at Haizaki. Haizaki blinks and breaks out into laughter again.

“Figures he would have more than one gun on him,” Haizaki takes one threatening step towards Kise.

“Don’t come any closer, Haizaki,” Kise finally says. His voice is raspy.

“Oh? And what are you going to do if I do?” Haizaki grins dangerously as if he was more delighted by the fact that Kise will fight back if he provokes him.

Kise raises thumb to cock his weapon. Haizaki’s eyes widen in manic excitement. He sees Mochizuki reacting out of the corner of his eye, steadying his aim. He raises his arm high pointing to the sky, preparing to shoot.

Haizaki’s laughs out loud again, “What are you an idiot, I’m right here-”

His finger is on the trigger. The gun isn’t particularly warm but his trigger finger feels sweaty. So much so the trigger is much more greasy than usual, but Kise holds on tight as he starts to squeeze the trigger.

“Ki-chan, don’t shoot!”

Momoiichi’s voice crackles over a megaphone as she flies closer to the building in a black helicopter. Like an angel sent from heaven dressed in a nicely tailored pant suit, her eyes glowing, she grasps the bar above the open door as her pink hair flies around in a frenzy from the wind, Kise’s eyes flicker towards her, desperate and grateful, as she starts yelling at Haizaki and Mochizuki to stand down.

“I have the premises surrounded. You all are under arrest. Drop your weapons and put your hands up.”

Momoiichi flicks her head and Kise directs his focus down toward the campus. Flashing lights of red and blue surround the premises and hundreds of policemen swarm the campus. Kise drops his arm slowly letting the flare gun slip from his hands. Haizaki and Mochizuki stand on the roof top dumbfounded as policemen in bullet-proof vests descend from the skies. Even though he was working for Fukuda Sogo, the sight of policemen taking over is a breath of relief. He doesn’t have to worry about Haizaki or Mochizuki trying to kill him anymore. But all is not well yet. Aomine...he’s still back there, near the turbines. Kise tries to take a step toward him as pain shoots up his side. That asshole Haizaki may have broken a rib or two, each step sends a tidal wave of pain up and down his side, but Kise bites his lip and endures it. He needs to know if Aomine is alive. That’s the most important thing right now, his only prerogative. He hobbles over as fast as he can to Aomine, carefully rolling him into his lap, pulling down the collar of his shirt to check his pulse.

Oh god.

There’s a heartbeat. Kise’s eyes mist up all over again.

Aomine winces in his lap, “Your hands are fucking freezing.”

“Aomine-,” Kise takes gulps of air as fresh tears spill from his eyes, “Aominechhiiii!”

He pulls Aomine into a suffocating hug, as Aomine grunts in protest.

“Ow, ow ow- Ouch! Calm it with the sudden movements! It _freakin’_ hurts,” Aomine complains loudly, and albeit over exaggeratedly.

Kise releases him gently as Aomine struggles to sit up, wincing. Kise wraps his arm around Aomine’s waist and helps him up. After getting him into an upright sitting position, he dares to venture, feebly, “You’re...you’re not dead.”

Aomine slides, leaning against Kise’s shoulder, “Nope.”

Incredulous, Kise gapes at him, “How?”

Aomine glances at his shoulder, “Dunno, but I’m alive.”

“Then-then what about earlier? You collapsed in my arms- the blood, oh god, there was so much- should we call someone-”

Aomine interrupts Kise’s incoherent babbling, “No, I’m fine. I think the bullet just went through my shoulder.”

He winces while trying to move his injured shoulder. The idiot. Kise quickly puts a hand on it to stop him.

“Then….” Kise sniffs loudly putting one and one together, his eyes throbbing from crying so much, “Were you...faking it?”

It’s Aomine’s hesitation that confirms it. This jerk! He...he played him! This idiot played him. Kise flushes dark red, anger filling every pore of his body and the thought of finally finishing him once and for all flitted across his mind as he exclaimed, “You were! You jerk!”

He was so worried for him, like it was real this time and he couldn’t save him and it was all over. Kise was genuinely worried for his livelihood only to realize that Aomine was faking it. He takes back his earlier assertion that Aomine was a shit actor, because this last act was convincing as heck and- he cannot believe Aomine freaking played him!

“Pay back,” Aomine says breaking out into a grin. Furious, Kise is reminded of the humiliation of having walked around in public the entire day with toilet paper stuck out of his pants.

Kise submits to his rising urge and punches Aomine in the arm. Aomine breaks out laughing so hard that he groans suddenly, bending over. Really? What is this? Is this part of the act? Or is he really hurt? Caught in between annoyance and worry, Kise eyes him suspiciously. He doesn’t want to do anything to make himself look like a fool again. But Aomine grins at him, doubled over, his face is contorted in pain, “I think...I may have started bleeding again.”

Kise flushes redder, “You- You idiot! Stop laughing, or you’ll die for real. S-stupid!”

He crosses his arms angrily and looks away, though not moving his body as support for Aomine who is still leaning against him.

“Anyways,” Aomine sighs, “That was satisfying. Now we are even.”

Even? What is he talking about? Putting up a stupid act and oh...that’s right. Doesn’t this situation sound familiar? The thing about him trying to kill Aomine was still some kind of weird taboo between them. Fine. But it is still really childish of Aomine to just do what he did. Like be the better man! Kise can feel his anger residing though, but he still wants to pretend for a minute that he was still mad at Aomine.

Puffing his cheeks, he pouts, “So mean, you know I didn’t want to kill you though! If you died...I don’t know what I would do. S-so, you’re horrible.”

Kise’s voice wavers. Guess he didn’t mean that in such a joking way.

“And you’re not? But...I know. I’m sorry,” Aomine mumbles looking at him.

Kise’s eyes brim with tears as he looks back at Aomine. Biting his lip, he says nothing because anything he could say would cause him to cry again. He looks up, blinking a few times and swallowing, waiting for the tears to go away and when they finally do he agrees, “I’m horrible...Guess I deserve it huh?”

“Hell yea you do, idiooot,” Aomine leans his head against his, “But you know who I really want to see get the crap beaten out of him? Haizaki. God that guy is such an asshole, I was about to get up and tackle him if he beat you up anymore-”

“You saw that? Did you really just sit back and watch me get beat up? Was that part of your pay back?”

“No! Why would you-! I was stuck between and act and texting Satsuki and- why am I the one being scolded right now?! Are you serious?!!”

“Because you are an idiot. The biggest idiot.”

“Uh no, that’s impossible because I’m looking at him.”

“No you-,” Kise flips his head around and finds himself face to face with Aomine. They stare at each other in surprise as if they forgot how close they are. And how it feels to be next to each other. Aomine’s body leaning against him, the weight on him is so real, Kise forgets for a moment how to breathe and it’s like that time on the rooftop all over again. Eyes lidding, Aomine leans forward slowly and Kise finds himself being drawn toward him like a magnet.

“Ki-chan, Dai-chan!” Momoiichi runs up to them panting, brushing the hair out of her gorgeous face. They sit back immediately, pretending as if they weren’t about to make out with twenty policemen on the roof and a helicopter flying around.

“Oh, god,” She immediately sees the blood stains everywhere her eyes flickering between Kise and Aomine as she reports into her walkie talkie, “I need emergency services up on the tallest building stat.”

“Fricken hell, Satsuki, no one is dying here,” Aomine grumbles loudly.

She squints at him, probably mentally examining his person to find any wounds, and then brings up her walkie talkie again, “On second thought-”

She looks up at the helicopter.

 

Getting off the roof is a blur.

Well, a blur and loud rumbling sounds. Kise finds himself sitting on the curb close to the ambulances and firetrucks. Policemen, investigators, reporters mill about, still in the chaos of the aftermath of bringing Fukuda Sogo down. Kise dazedly watches crate after crate of drugs being lifted out of the compound, placed carefully into police SUVs. He had expected to be in one of those or in the back of a cop car now. Because the infiltration plan ended successfully, so he should be arrested. The strangest thing is that no policemen have come by to take him or even cuff him. They have arrested Haizaki, Mochizuki, and a bunch of other Fukuda Sogo members– basically almost everyone (because he didn’t see Ishida)– but not him. Because he’s expecting arrest, he feels a rush of nerves as policemen and women walk towards him, it always fades when they pass by. But Aomine had said that was going to happen. So then why?  Kise looks down at his wrists, pale and cuffless. His hands sure could use some lotion.

A spot of red light flies through his vision. Kise turns to look at the source. The ambulance where Aomine is getting some remedial first aid. From his angle, since he’s sitting, stretchers block his view so all he can see are Aomine’s calves and the paramedic’s legs. Aomine’s legs sway a little as the paramedic flits around him, putting the finishing touches on his bandaged arm. Kise watches in a daze before seeing the paramedics walk off and...Aomine is finally alone in the ambulance. Not thinking, he stands up, and his legs start moving. He blinks again. By the time he realizes what he’s doing, he finds himself face to face with Aomine, sitting in the back of the ambulance. Aomine looks at him, curiously.

“Hey,” Kise says, clearing his throat while settling down next to him..

“Hey,” Aomine says back in his deep voice, watching him.

Needing to focus on something, Kise watches the cops a few cars away, “How’s your arm?”

Aomine glances at his arm, now fully cleaned, bandaged and in a sling, “They said I need to go to the hospital later so I can get the bullet removed and stuff. But it’s fine I guess.”

Kise stops him from swinging his arm to prove that it is okay, “I believe you.”

Aomine winces, “Kinda wish they gave me some pain meds though.”

“Why? You can’t handle the pain?”

“Hey, why don’t you get shot in the shoulder and let me know how it goes? Geez, Kise, TSA doesn’t get into this kind of stuff.”

“Well, you did...so…”

“Yea…”

Kise feels self conscious all over again. He wrings his hands nervously, purposely ignoring Aomine’s gaze. Aomine’s legs are a hair width away from his. He didn’t really think when he sat down and now it’s too late to move over, for fear of making the situation more awkward. But Aomine doesn’t make an effort to move his legs.

“So...it’s all over,” Aomine says after a while.

“Yea,” Kise agrees, now focusing on a reporter who is sneaking through the scene to interview cops.

Aomine continues to swing his legs gently in the air. Kise can feel Aomine’s thigh muscles moving, Aomine’s calf breezing by his so closely it tickles. Kise sneaks a peek at Aomine through his lashes really quickly. Aomine is still looking at him, eyes glinting when they make that millisecond of eye contact. Kise quickly looks away, but it’s clear that Aomine noticed, because he shifts a little. It causes some pain because Aomine hisses a little.

“So...what is it?” Aomine asks, breaking the silence.

“Huh?” Kise finally turns to look at him. What is “it”? What is he talking about?

“You know,” Aomine reddens and brings up his non-injured arm to rub his neck nervously, “Your answer. To my….confession.”

Kise exhales slowly. Wait. Out of all of the things to ask. Kise’s heart races rapidly and he feels emotion building up. Seriously? After everything...could it really be?

Cautiously, he says, “But I tried to kill you.”

“Yea,” Aomine replies, eyes not blinking. The feeling grows and Kise feels it rising in his throat.

“You almost died...protecting me too,” he continues, gingerly.

“Kinda yea...dumbass,” Aomine rolls his eyes. The feeling has swallowed Kise up to his eyeballs.

Kise doesn’t say anything more. Or rather, he can’t. His heart is racing so fast he needs to catch his breath and fight away the feeling before it completely swallows him whole. Aomine sits there waiting, red and blue reflecting off his skin as Kise wrings his hands, more nervous and sweaty than ever. He takes a staggered breath, “If...you are still dumb enough to follow me through all of that, and if you still would have me...then yes. I want to be with you.”

He turns his head towards Aomine, biting his lip unsure of what will happen. Blood is rushing in his ears as Aomine blinks a few times, taking everything in. Aomine’s eyebrow twitches. Kise is so conscious of every breath he and Aomine takes, making sure that they don’t take breaths at the same time paranoid that if their breathing overlaps that will cause Aomine will wake up and realize what an idiot he is. Accepting someone who played him and betrayed him, whirling in wreaking emotional and physical damage like a summer typhoon, in his or anyone’s right mind, Aomine should never take him back. Even as much as Kise wants him to (and does he _want_ to). But not only does Kise want him to he wants so much more than initially promised, it’s like prodding the bottom of a drying well in hopes that more water will spring up when Kise knows there’s no more.

At this moment, Aomine’s eyes are so dark, reflecting Kise’s reflection so that all Kise sees is himself, a nervous wreck of what he was when he first met Aomine. All he wants to do is look away, this new Kise is hard to take in especially in a moment like now. Kise blinks, wishing the feeling of dread away. It’s coming. He knows. The feeling has completely submerged his body.

Aomine’s forehead wrinkles as his eyebrows knit. Oh god. Here it comes. The thing that sent Kise away the first time because he never realize how much it hurt when Aomine said it. Aomine frowns and leans forward as Kise watches him wide eyed, his heart palpitations growing erratic once again.

Kise focuses on Aomine’s mouth, which starts to open.

He’s going to say it. Kise wants to close his eyes and will himself away. He wants to run. Get to a place so far away that he won’t hear it. Because he already knows the second time is going to hurt even more and he can’t bear it. His breaths grow more shallow as he flinches suddenly feeling Aomine’s thumb brush his cheek.

“What’s there to cry about, idiot?” Aomine mumbles as he wipes away some tears.

What? Was he crying?

“Huh?” Kise asks as if he wasn’t having a mental meltdown at this moment.

“Geez,” Aomine gently brings Kise’s head to his chest.

Upon impact, Kise squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe, but Aomine’s scent overpowers him and his mind goes blank. What...is happening?

“Aominecchi, this is your injured arm,” Kise says in half-sob, voice muffled in the fabric of Aomine’s still-bloodstained shirt.

“Well, duh,” his voice rumbles in his chest. It’s so soothing.

Kise feels Aomine petting his hair. His touch is so gentle that Kise feels so disappointed in the few seconds Aomine’s warm hand leaves his head. But more importantly….sending someone away doesn’t involve...petting?

Aomine continues to pet him slowly, “If I would have you? I don’t understand you. Why don’t you show me what you mean?”

Aomine cups his face and gently raises his head. He winces a little. Kise encircles his wrists as he sets them back down, keeping the distance between them.

Aomine smirks at him. Arrogant, obnoxious, and crude just like the beginning when they were working together. Kise’s heart cannot stop racing in his chest as Aomine leans closer, his voice low, “And freaking kiss me already.”

In a blink, Kise surges forward and presses his lips against Aomine’s, grabbing hold of Aomine’s shirt with no intention to left go ever. Wrapping his other arm around Aomine’s neck as he leans against him, his hands are full of Aomine with no room to hold any poison, gun, or any means to kill him. Aomine’s uninjured arm sneaks forward and pulls Kise against him as he kisses back. Kise smiles against his lips. Kise feels Aomine chuckle against him.

They say kisses are so uplifting, like a takeoff into the sky powered by endorphins and adrenaline. It feels like freedom. Without the constraint of anything, like a rebirth of a phoenix, Kise emerges from the ashes of the fallout and finally he can be where he wants to. With Aomine.

It’s been a bumpy ride (one could call it deadly), and there’s no promises for any task, any obligations, not even the seatbelt signs are on anymore. Kise starts with the promise of Aomine and with that he can keep flying through the skies. It’s the start of a new journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a couple weeks break, this is the last installment of ACAL. It's over!
> 
> Thank you for your patience, support, and for bearing with this mess of a story. I have gone back and edited a lot of the story so that it reads better. However if you are like ugh I'm so sick of ACAL I just want to be done, I understand hahaha.
> 
> I have never written a story so long, but this was a fun ride!
> 
> Ummm a couple things, if you notice a trend with the titles, yes they are Bon Jovi songs but that's just because why not and it's not a recommended playlist or anything. Also I have a few more side stories left from ACAL, but I'll post them separately!
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading and supporting! I will see you later.


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